Board Chooses Reporting Plan for Restaurants : Safety: Rejecting letter grades, supervisors require restaurants to provide inspection papers on request. Health Care Agency to give public more information.

Orange County’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to require restaurants to give customers more information about health and safety conditions in their kitchens and dining rooms--but they won’t have to post letter grades.

Supervisors rejected the consumer-friendly A-B-C grades that other Southern California counties use and that patrons say they like.

Instead, the board directed the county’s Health Care Agency to provide more information to the public and to require restaurants to make inspection reports available to customers upon request.

Under the plan, the agency will use the Internet to post inspection reports

and the names of restaurants closed because of health violations. It also will revise reports to make the information easier to read and will set up a 24-hour hotline to take complaints.

By a 4-1 vote, supervisors also approved a plan to give restaurants recognition certificates for consistently doing well on inspections. Though food industry groups supported the use of certificates, Supervisor Jim Silva dissented.

“I feel the county shouldn’t be giving out awards and prizes such as these certificates because big companies can use them in advertisements and marketing and small companies and restaurants can’t,” Silva said.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who had pushed for letter grades in May only to back away after the food industry criticized them, pointed out that the county’s $6-billion tourism industry had recommended using the awards.

“The certificates allow the consuming public to see which restaurants have performed in an exemplary way over a period of time,” Spitzer said.

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Most of the changes will not go into effect immediately. The health agency was given 90 days to submit a final report detailing how it will implement the board’s decision. Supervisors also directed the agency to consult with the local food industry in working up its report.

Meantime, the agency and the food industry are assessing the effect that a state bill, SB 1013, may have on the board’s action. The bill, written by Byron Sher (D-Stanford), requires standardized inspections and inspection reports throughout the state. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signature.

At the board meeting, food industry representatives said they could support the board’s action. But they opposed using letter grades for restaurants and food establishments because grades give only a “quick snapshot” of a restaurant’s performance.

“We feel the public wants more than A-B-C letter grades,” said Gary Parkinson, president of the California Restaurant Assn. and owner of Summit House restaurant in Fullerton.

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“Also, receiving a low grade can give a negative connotation for a restaurant that’s been very clean for a long while,” he said. “And you can get an A grade that is a positive connotation for a place that only performed well for 30 minutes [during the inspection].”

Spitzer praised the county’s existing inspection efforts. “Nine out of 10 times,” he said, health inspectors visit restaurants within 24 hours of getting complaints.

Of the more than 10,000 restaurants and food establishments in the county, health agency inspectors closed 191 last year. In addition, out of 527 complaints received by the agency, 859 people got sick allegedly from food-borne causes.

* AUGUST CLOSINGS

The Times lists O.C. restaurants recently shut down and why. B7