Health Inspections:
A-C
D-L
M-R
S-Z
Marin County Restaurants- Safe and Healthy?
Marin Restaurant Health Inspections Are Online...Here!
MoreMarin Health
Inspection Explanation
Until the county has its own system online, what we publish is the only
choice.
We have received several complaints both directly and indirectly, alleging that the way we post data, is unfair and misleading. They want us to include not only routine inspections, but also the results of re-inspections. First of all, there is a lot of misinformation floating around about the inspection process, and the way the county collects, collates and presents data. This is an attempt to explain the process, and why MoreMarin doesn't include re-inspection information at this time.
What is a re-inspection? If a restaurant has violations found at the initial routine inspection, then an inspector may decide to schedule a re-inspection at a later time of his or her choice, but usually after two weeks, to determine if the violations have been corrected. Contrary to belief by some, there is no official re-inspection timeline. It’s often based more on the schedule of the inspector, than the severity of the violation. An inspector would not need to come back if a major critical violation was corrected on site at the time of the routine inspection. Again, contrary to popular opinion, most major critical violations are not corrected-on-site, and require re-inspections.
Why doesn't MoreMarin publish re-inspection data as well as routine
inspection data? We would love to include the results of
re-inspections, but it is currently impossible to do so in an objective
manner. Why? Because the County does not currently collect
re-inspection data in the same manner as it does routine inspections.
In mid-summer 2007,
the County began using an inspection form based on one that Sonoma
County uses. This form is totally unambiguous. It contains columns
that list the violations, and check boxes beside the violations,
indicating minor or major severity. If the restaurant is in violation,
the box is checked. If the restaurant is not in violation, the box is
left unchecked. It's that simple.
However, when it
comes to re-inspections, the inspectors do not use the form. Instead,
the inspectors will write a narrative explaining what they see. It is
often not clear from reading the narrative, if all or any of the items
have been corrected, because there is no box to check to say yes or no.
Very often, we found narratives that indicated the restaurant had not
corrected the violations and called for a further re-inspection some
weeks later. Yet the file did not contain any further re-inspection
information, and several months had passed. In some cases over a year
had passed with no re-inspection. Did that mean they were eventually
going to re-inspect? Did they forget to re-inspect? Is there a statute
of limitations on violations? The gathering and dissemination of
re-inspection information is currently a subjective process- open to
interpretation and error. This is why MoreMarin does not, at
least for now, include re-inspection information.
Many restaurant
owners have said our information is misleading because it doesn't
include re-inspection information. We disagree.
While it’s true that all issues a facility had at the time of the routine inspection may have been later resolved, don’t forget that the routine inspection you see on our online database, was probably not the first one the restaurant has had. If a restaurant resolves all its issues and then, six month to a year later has several new major critical violations, we find that information more useful than the fact that the results of the re-inspection were clean. If things go that far downhill in 6 months to a year, we think that's more significant than on the one day they were able to clean-up for the re-inspection.
A couple months ago the IJ published an article listing 29 restaurants that required three or more re-inspections to resolve its issues. Since many re-inspections never happened, it’s obvious that the number should be much higher. We would like to report the number of re-inspections it takes to resolve issues but that would be misleading.
The most complete online restaurant health rating websites include historical information. Unfortunately, the current method the County of Marin uses makes it virtually impossible to objectively provide re-inspection information. We have already made the suggestion to the County, that they change the way they collect data on re-inspections by using a similar, or the same form as routine inspections.
Also, it should be noted that State law says that food facilities must make a copy of the most recent “routine inspection” available to all interested parties and maintain a sign to that effect.
113725.1. A copy of the most recent routine inspection report conducted to assess compliance with this part shall be maintained at the food facility and made available upon request. The food facility shall post a notice advising consumers that a copy of the most recent routine inspection report is available for review by any interested party.
Notice it says “routine inspection” and not re-inspection.
Is the data we have perfect? Of course not. Should we wait until the county has more quantitative information? Of course not. Before we published the data, getting any information on an eating establishment was not easy. Many restaurants, when asked, are not able to locate copies of their inspections. If you want to see a file from the County, you usually have to alert them beforehand. The reality is that our website is currently the only reasonably reliable and easy way for patrons of Marin to get health inspection information.
Until the county has its own system online, what we publish is the only choice.