Restaurants resist new letter grades

ALBUQUERQUE (KRE) - Albuquerque restaurants would be assigned report-card style letter grades instead of “red or green” certificates if a city councilor succeeds in revamping the food sanitation ordinance.

“It by no means is put forth to cause any hardship,” Councilor Trudy Jones told KRQE News 13. “It is just to give the citizens a better idea of what’s happening.”

City health inspectors currently judge food-service establishments including school cafeterias on a pass-or-fail system. The new system would assign A, B and C grades to restaurants who pass and a U for Unsatisfactory to restaurants that fail.

“We would like to make sure the citizens understand that when you get an A it is truly in good shape,” Jones said.

Some restaurant owners contacted by News 13 see no problem with the proposal that would return to a grading system abandoned years ago.

However the New Mexico Restaurant Association is among those who oppose it.

“A health department inspection sheet, while a matter of public record, is really a working document, a snapshot, that is provided by the health department to the restaurant owner and is not designed to serve as a guidepost to the general consumer as to the quality or purity of the food served in restaurants,” the association wrote on its Web site. “The fact that a restaurant is open for business indicates that no health hazard exists at that establishment.

"If a food service establishment poses a risk to human health, it should be closed on the spot.”

Under the proposed changes, restaurants that score 90 percent or better on official inspection reports would be assigned an A. Those who score 80-89 percent would get a B, and those scoring 70-79 percent would get a C.

The letter grades would be printed on signs that would have to be posted in the public view.

“In today’s economy we don’t need another regulation that’s going to add more cost to business,” Kathy Diaz, owner of Monroe’s restaurants in Albuquerque, said. “You could have an accumulation of very minor points that take you down to a B, for instance.

"What does that say to the public?”

Diaz said she’s worried a new system would be just like a similar system that was in place 20 years ago. The old system was susceptible to abuse and manipulation, she added.

“It’s really a money grab, we think, from the city,” Diaz continued. “It’s an extra way to get more and more fees.”

Jones, however, denied increasing city revenue in the face of budget shortfalls is behind the proposal.

“The goal is not to have to go back and re-inspect and make more money," Jones said. “The goal is to bring restaurants to a higher standard.”

The proposal will get its first public airing next month when the city council’s Finance and Government Operations meets.