New York City’s paternalist in chief, Michael Bloomberg, has announced that his city will now require restaurants to prominently post their safety inspection grades. Mary Cheh has introduced a similar bill in DC. On the surface it seems like a good idea. Here’s a writer at Slashfood, for example, a site not exactly known for its critical thinking about regulation:
So will this work? When Los Angeles County enacted the letter grading system back in 1998, only 40 percent of its restaurants received “A” grades. By 2006, 83 percent were meeting the standard. I have faith — it will take some time, but restaurants and consumers alike will benefit.
LA’s results are likely true, but it confuses the measurement with what we’re trying to measure. What we should care about is actual food safety, not the letter grades restaurants are receiving. If the grades aren’t highly correlated with preventing customers from getting sick, then restaurants are just wasting time and money to comply with arcane regulations and to create the illusion of safety.
Jessica at Crispy on the Outside looked up some her favorite places:
I actually read the health department reports and find that most of my favorite awesome restaurants have some infraction, usually that there is no “food manager” at the restaurant when the food police show up, which would get them a “C”.
Is having a “food manager” on duty during all business hours a cost effective way to improve outcomes? Maybe, maybe not. We do know that it drives up expenses for restaurants and training time for employees. Before we give restaurants a scarlet letter for violating this rule, we might want to find out if it actually accomplishes anything. And that’s just one rule of many.
Marc Fisher notes at the Post that proposed system relies too heavily on city inspectors:
[...] a fair and useful system would depend more on transparency than on the blunt instrument of letter grades that may not represent anything more than the misdeeds of a single vindictive, corrupt or incompetent inspector. Is there a D.C. resident who cannot imagine that their city might be home to such an inspector?
Add bribes to the higher costs of business a letter grade system might impose on DC restaurants.
The irony of this regulation and related laws about posting nutritional data is that they’re coming at a time when information technology makes them less necessary than ever. We’re not far off from the time when GPS-enabled internet phones will tell you everything you’d like to know about a restaurant as you pause in front of its window. Cities should focus on making their inspection data readily available electronically; the usefulness, if any, of current measures is limited to a few years before technology will render it obsolete.
Lastly, the nannies behind this law have no sense of aesthetics. I’ve eaten at dives and I’ve eaten at high-end establishments. When I went for banh mi in the Virginia suburbs and watched my friend flick a roach of his wrist while we waited for our sandwiches, I knew what I was getting into. (Our lunch was delicious, by the way.) Similarly, when I go out for an expensive dinner at a nice restaurant, I trust the chef not to send me home sick. Pasting a tacky city inspection certificate in the window just detracts from the experience.
Permalink - Share/Save - Comments (7)
Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
Follow me on Twitter
I don’t know…here, at least, they have posted the health inspection sheets. There’s a prominent total number out of 100, but you can see exactly what they were counted off for. I like being able to see what people missed. No label on some sauce? Not a big deal for most places. Meat at the wrong temp? Kinda a big deal.
So while I agree that the final number (or letter) isn’t the issue, and that a lot of the rules are stupid, I would be disappointed if the health inspection results here weren’t prominently displayed.
Same issue I have with you on posting nutritional information: more information leads to more accurate markets. If your issue is with the underlying methodology of the health regulation regime, we can talk about that, but the mere posting of the information is a benefit to everybody.
I can’t make a decision about a restaurant without having the facts at my disposal. By reducing the cost of obtaining these facts (by posting them in the restaurant as opposed to online), I, as a consumer, can make better decisions about where I want to spend my money. The market for healthy food (or unhealthy food, as the market dictates) will accurately reflect demand only if consumers have sufficient access (at sufficiently low transactional costs) to accurate information. Without knowledge, I’ll have to rely on appearances and reputations, neither is without its utility, but I’d like to have access to objective data as well.
Posting this sort of information is good for consumers and good for markets. I’m fine with it, and it’s certainly preferable to simply legislating away unhealthy restaurants. In LA the unhealthy restaurants face immediate and public ostracism (assuming the LA health inspection regime is worth its salt). Rather than banning unhealthy food, the market is working to force restaurants to meet the desires of the consumers.
This is good.
Furthermore, I don’t think a low grade drives anyone away from an average restaurant. Hell, we still ate at the Pub, didn’t we? What did it receive, a 69?
Here in NC, they require a number and a letter grade. (I’m suspicious of the numbers - I know a few places that get a 101.5. I guess the extra 1.5 is what the bribe paid to the inspector is worth.) Anyway, I don’t know a single person who goes into a restaurant they would normally want to eat at, sees a sub-80 grade, and turns around and leaves. (Of course, I never see a sub-80 grade - must be fairly easy to pass inspection in NC.) So unless there are rules forcing restaurants to close for a series of minor infractions, I think it’s a useless regulation that will have little effect on anyone except the germophobes.
Although your title has me singing the Toys ‘R’ Us song…
I don’t wanna grow up
I’m a Nanny State kid
There’s millions of laws in Nanny State that I can violate
From smoking to drinking to saggy pants
And every behavior there is
I don’t wanna grow up, ’cause if I did
I couldn’t be a Nanny State kid…
Pasting a tacky city inspection certificate in the window just detracts from the experience.
Tell me that you’re not just a little embarrassed making this argument.
Jeff, that’s brilliant. But does no one get the BNL reference? Mike, where are you?
I assumed it was thinly stretched “A is A” reference.