Sonoma County to rate health of restaurants

All 3,500 restaurants in Sonoma County will be rated by county health officials following unannounced visits thanks to a recent vote of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Reaction to the news has been mixed. Some customers have their favorite restaurants and restaurant owners and really don’t want to know that their friends’ establishments may not be what they expected, while celebrating that their favorites might be rated highly.

Given that some local dinner party conversations eventually come around to where guests got sick after eating out or bringing home food to go, many consumers will probably welcome this news. The whole point of the rating system is to reduce food-borne illness, according to Stephan Bez, director of the county Department of Health Services.

The system already exists in Marin, Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Sacramento and Los Angeles counties.

Apparently starting sometime this spring, the ratings will be shown by green, yellow or red placards. Green signals the establishment got a “pass” – meaning they have one major violation or less that can be corrected. Yellow says the restaurant got a “conditional pass,” meaning they had two or more violations. A red placard, which says, “closed,” signifies serious violations such as sewage problems or vermin infestations, such as rats and excrement.

This system would appear to be based on visual evaluations, but does not, and maybe cannot, evaluate or measure germs spread by sick food workers. It’s a reality that many often low-paid kitchen workers (and others) go to work sick because they fear missing a day of pay or getting fired.

According to the Press Democrat, Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce president Jonathan Cole feared that any new regulation would bring added expense to food businesses and that the costs would be passed on to consumers.

Does it really cost that much more to assure that your store or dining establishment is clean?