Delegge said in Salt Lake County, "We have a strong belief here that any regulatory program works well with two strong legs: education and enforcement. Either one of them being weak is not productive.

"People have to have the opportunity to understand what it is we are requiring them to do without a hammer on them. But at the same time, they need an incentive to become educated and implement what we teach."

Beebe said the philosophy in Utah County is, "We try to accomplish as much as we can through education and use enforcement as a tool of last resort."

One tool that neither county has used much is the threat of bad publicity. For example, Salt Lake County will post the name of eateries that it orders to be closed, but only until they reopen. That Internet posting is then removed.

Many other places nationally routinely post results of all inspections on the Internet or at restaurants themselves with the idea that it provides extra incentive for restaurants to perform well.

The Davis County Board of Health recently ordered Internet postings of all inspection results to begin later this year, apparently the first in Utah.

But that does not happen in Utah and Salt Lake counties. They require formal state open-record law requests for most information. In Salt Lake County, if a resident complains that a restaurant made him sick, he cannot even find out the results of the subsequent investigation without filing an open-records law request. Utah County will give results to complainants but not others without formal open-records law requests.

Beebe said Utah County has been hesitant to move toward Internet listing of inspection results because of the concern "that the public could misinterpret what we put out there. We want to put out something that is fair and understandable."

Delegge said Salt Lake County is moving toward at least considering Internet postings. Toward that end, he said it developed its current informal violation point system (used by the Morning News in its listings) to more fairly prioritize importance of various violations found for possible use by consumers in making comparisons.

Delegge said inspectors plan to discuss the possibility of online listings with an advisory group to the Board of Health, and then with that board itself, later this year.

Melva Sine, president of the Utah Restaurant Association, says it has concerns about posting inspection results online.

"What will this cost? Is there a good cost-benefit ratio? Have they allowed due process so a restaurant has an opportunity to question if an inspection was made properly? Are they going to require that all inspected facilities have results posted, and not just restaurants?" she asked.