There has been a revolution. A revolution in the amount of knowledge a consumer is exposed to in New York City. This is due to the fact that, "the city [has] adopted a new system requiring restaurants to post large, brightly colored letter grades rating their cleanliness and safety... (Wall Street Journal Online October 13,2010). The restaurant owners have been waiting impatiently to "defend their kitchens" because they do not want their businesses receiving less than an A rating.
The ratings of A, B, or C are based on how many violations an inspector from the "Department of Health and Mental Hygiene" sees when inspecting a restaurant or food chain. There is a long, tedious process that the food vendors must go through if one, "fails to receive an A, 13 violation points or fewer, on its first inspection, it does not receive a grade until at least one other inspection is made." So, it is possible to receive an A, but very few do, which is causing the lines at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to be very long. Thus, to make the process increase in speed, there has been an increase in "hearing rooms and [the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has been] encouraging restaurants to accept settlements in place of hearings." This means that they can get two inspections, and receive a low score and keep fighting for a high score, or the restaurant owners can pay penalty fines.
People used to have to blindly guess whether a restaurant was sanitary. A well known tip included, checking if the bathroom was clean before eating. This is because it is much easier to clean a bathroom then a kitchen. If a bathroom is dirty, the kitchen will most likely be worse off. However, it is much better now that people do not have to guess the cleanliness of his or her food when eating in New York City; since it has already been investigated by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Even though this is a positive effect for the consumer, the restaurants are going to be negatively affected. The ones that have poor reports for "cleanliness and safety" are going to end up closing since consumers are knowledgable and will choose another restaurant or food chain. Some restaurants might pay the fines, but not be able to have customers continue to come, with the knowledge of unsanitary areas. If consumers are choosing other food chains and restaurants, than the one's that have poor ratings will inevitably shut down. Although, being a frugal college student might make the rating not important to the consumer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/nyregion/14inspect.html?ref=dining&pagewanted=print
Nice job identifying several ways this might effect the industry and consumers.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good idea because it forces businesses to become sanitary essentially if they want to stay in business. Sanitation is something that can easily be taken for granted in a restaurant because its not the purpose of the business. Most people focus on the quality of the food and service. Maybe we will see results from this as in better health for consumers and workers, or increases in popularity of new restaurants.
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