Council backs off grades for food
HAWTHORNE: Council votes to end requirement that restaurants and markets post scores from county health inspections in their windows.
By Ian Gregor, Daily Breeze
Hawthorne's 255 restaurants and food markets would no longer have to post health department
letter grades in their windows under a plan that has received preliminary approval from the City Council.
The council voted 4-1 Tuesday to exempt its food service businesses from the requirements. The
council must vote again in two weeks to adopt the exemption.
All other South Bay cities with restaurants, and 75 of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, require
letter grade postings, said Terrance Powell, chief environmental health specialist for the county health department. The grades signify how restaurants score on regular health department inspections.
Hawthorne Mayor Larry Guidi proposed opting out of the system two weeks ago after a public complaint from one restaurant owner, who received a C and two B's on inspections during the past year.
Gary Evans, whose family has owned the Pizza Show on Hawthorne Boulevard for 45 years, said any restaurant can score well or poorly on any given day because inspectors interpret violations
differently. Low letter grades, which sometimes are unjustified or based on minor violations, drive away customers, he said.
"In one day a health inspector can walk into a business you've spent a lifetime building ... and destroy your business by putting a C in your window," Evans said. "All of us share the same thing:
extreme fear of the health department."
But Councilman Gary Parsons said he continues to eat at his favorite fried chicken restaurant on
Hawthorne Boulevard, Louisiana Fried Chicken, even though a B hangs in its window. He noted that most cities in the county support the rating system.
"There's something other cities know that we don't, I guess," Parsons said, adding that residents he spoke with favor the grades.
Powell told the council that restaurant owners can appeal poor ratings, either in a hearing with an ombudsman or by paying $203 to be reinspected, which Evans recently did and received an A.
Consistently poor ratings, however, indicate "a pattern of recurring violations," he said in an interview.
Three of California's 58 counties -- Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego -- require letter grade postings. Currently, 97 percent of Los Angeles County's restaurants, markets and bakeries are in
areas that require letter grade postings, Powell said.
Los Angeles County adopted the restaurant rating system in January 1998 after a television news
report exposed unhealthy conditions in some establishments. Cities decide whether their restaurants have to post grades. Since the system debuted, the number of county restaurants that scored lower
than a C plunged from 5.7 percent to 0.3 percent, Powell said.
Hawthorne's City Council voted 4-1 in 1999 to require posting. But two weeks ago, Guidi -- who
voted with the majority in 1999 -- suddenly directed the City Attorney's Office to draft an ordinance to repeal the posting requirement.
Guidi said Tuesday that restaurant owners other than Evans also had complained to him privately, but he identified only one of them. Guidi did not return a telephone message on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the mayor raised some eyebrows by lashing out at Parsons after the councilman remarked that Evans had received a string of B and C ratings.
"You exposed this man by his rating and you shouldn't have done that," Guidi scolded.
Parsons responded that he didn't expose anybody because the information is publicly available on
the county health department's Web site, lapublichealth.org/rating/index. cfm.
Parsons said Wednesday that he'll make the matter an election issue in 2005 -- through a ballot
initiative if necessary -- if the council votes next month to scrap the letter grade posting requirement.
Publish Date:March 25, 2004 |
