Make inspections accessible

Health departments in Utah ought to post the results of their restaurant inspections on Web sites that are easily accessible and navigable for all. They also should consider a grading system that requires restaurants to post their cleanliness grade in the window for all to see.

Public agencies charged with health inspections do this sort of thing in other parts of the country. Such an accounting would empower consumers and spur restaurants to do a better job meeting health codes.

On Sunday, the Deseret Morning News published a list of the restaurants in Salt Lake Valley that are the most egregious violators, as well as a list of the safest places to eat. To get this information, however, reporter Lee Davidson had to file a request under the state's Government Records Access Management Act, then run a computer analysis of about 10,000 inspections conducted in 2003 and 2004.

That isn't the kind of thing a family can do on a Friday evening when deciding where to dine out.

Worse than this, however, is the fact that people who complain to the Salt Lake Valley Health Department about becoming sick at a restaurant cannot get the results of the subsequent investigation without filing a formal request under state law.

The good news is that most eating establishments in Salt Lake Valley are clean. But the bad news is that it's difficult for consumers to know which ones are not.

Restaurant inspections always cause friction between government and private business. No restaurant wants the publicity that might come from an employee who improperly stores food or who is slow to clean up a mess when an inspector comes by. But health departments conduct inspections in order to protect the public. The public ought to have easy access to the results.

Meanwhile, restaurants that are impeccably clean can argue that they get little credit. Unless newspapers continue to publish inspection results, the public will have to be equally wary of every dining experience.

Some other parts of the country understand this. In King County, Washington, for example, a diner can simply type the name of a restaurant into a Web site and get the latest inspection information. A recent search on a popular seafood place in Seattle revealed that "hot potentially hazardous foods" were not stored properly. The search took less than a minute.

Health inspectors here already are operating with limited resources. The newspaper's search showed that two of every five restaurants were not inspected at least twice in 2004, which is what guidelines suggest. Posting results on a Web site would be an additional expense. But it would be well worth the cost.