Restaurants Need to Come Clean

From the five-star restaurants with their oh-so-fresh ingredients to the juke joints where food is an afterthought and of an uncertain age, Orange County’s eateries generally fare well with health inspectors.

The county employs more than 50 inspectors to keep tabs on the 11,000 restaurants and other food establishments, visiting several times a year to see that everything is shipshape.

The environmental health department, a part of the county Health Care Agency, is in charge of eagle-eyeing the grill and looking into the corners. The department is on the right track with its education campaigns, which aim at letting food handlers know what is required and how to comply.

Los Angeles County’s restaurants ran into a firestorm several months ago after a television expose of unsanitary conditions.

That prompted Los Angeles County to crack down on restaurants, closing them down for violations of the sanitary code at three times the usual rate.

A restaurant owned by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan was closed for a day for several dozen minor health-code violations. An inspector said the county’s Health Services Department, in the past, would have given restaurant owners some time to correct violations, but under the campaign, the eateries were immediately shut.

In Orange County, officials said inspectors temporarily closed 159 food establishments last year for severe violations of health codes. The offenses ranged from vermin infestation to unsanitary meat storage.

Restaurants in the county were found to be living up to health codes overall. Still, environmental health department workers said they were trying to deal more forcefully with chronic violators of the rules, including taking legal action when necessary.

The city of Orange is the only one in the county that requires a course in food sanitation. An owner or manager of a restaurant with five or more employees must attend the course, which is given by the county health department.

Patrons are entitled to assume that a restaurant is storing, preparing and serving food in clean conditions. County vigilance in this area is important. So is proper training of food handlers and servers.