Healthy Appetite for Perfection Stirs Inspector

It’s a measure of Raquel Doom’s status that she never has to call to say she’ll be visiting even the most exclusive Los Angeles restaurants.

Her approval coveted, her scorn feared, she turns down free meals so often you’d think she was a movie star.

If Doom sounds like a high-powered restaurant critic, that’s because she is -- in a sense.

She’s one of 145 county inspectors who monitor cleanliness and compliance with health codes in the 36,000 restaurants, markets, bakeries and warehouses in Los Angeles County where food is sold.

Instead of being buried in the pages of a restaurant guide, the judgments of inspectors like Doom appear as letter grades posted in the windows of restaurants across the county. The grades function as both carrot and stick, publicly rewarding compliers and punishing scofflaws with color-coded 5-inch-tall blue A’s, green B’s and red C’s.

Although county inspectors have long had the power to cite restaurants for code violations, the letter-grading system dates only to 1997, when it was adopted after an undercover KCBS-TV Channel 2 investigation showed unsanitary conditions and employees mishandling food in some restaurants.

Since then, grading restaurants has become one of the most recognizable and popular functions of a county government that operates largely out of the public eye, according to Terrence Powell, chief environmental specialist for the Department of Public Health. In a 2001 survey of 2,000 L.A. county residents, the grading program had an approval rating of 91%, and 89% of respondents thought that an A grade would help a food establishment’s business, Powell said.

The grading program is less popular with people like David Houston, owner of Q’s Billiards in Brentwood that got an A in a recent inspection. Houston complained that public confusion about what the grades actually signify puts undue pressure on restaurant owners.

“It’s not like school, where a B or a B+ is good,” Houston said. “Anything less than an A is seen as disastrous.”

The tools of the trade are hardly intimidating, judging by the food thermometer, pocket flashlight and notebook full of state and county health regulations Doom packed as she started her rounds on a recent day with a stop at Noah’s Bagels in Brentwood.

But within two minutes of introducing herself, she chided an employee about the pair of soiled work gloves he was wearing while stacking baking trays, then slid open the doors of a display case and began probing bagel dogs, tuna salad and chicken salad with efficient jabs of her food thermometer.

The employees were visibly nervous, but after about 20 minutes Doom noted just a few minor violations, and the shop retained its A.

“I’m fair, and I always give people a chance to explain,” Doom said afterward. “The reason I’m here is to help protect the public, not to post a grade in a window.”

Every establishment inspected starts out with a score of 100, with points deducted for each violation. Conditions that pose high risks for food-borne illnesses are considered serious, so undercooked food is a six-point deduction while an employee without a hairnet costs only one point. A final score of 90 or more merits an A, 80 to 89 a B, and 70 to 79 a C. Although the county considers any grade above 69 acceptable, such distinctions are lost on people like Ireal Gant, 49, who stood waiting for his order recently outside a Fatburger restaurant on Western Avenue.

“I won’t even sit down in a place that doesn’t have an A,” Gant said. “I definitely pay attention to the grades and if I see a B, I’m like, ‘What’s up?’ ”

John Dunlap, president of the California Restaurant Assn., said the grades reflect “a snapshot in time” that may not accurately reflect conditions in a restaurant. Dunlap said his group would prefer a coaching approach, where inspectors explain violations and allow time for them to be corrected.

Owners who are unhappy with their grades can pay $193 for a reinspection, but the procedure remains the same.

“We come in unannounced,” Powell said. “Our belief is that the way we find a facility is the way they operate.”

He said that reports of food-borne illnesses have gone down since letter-grades were instituted, from a high of 2,050 cases in 1998 to 1,466 cases in 2001, the last year for which information was available.

Occasionally, Doom finds a violation serious enough to require closing a restaurant, including lack of hot water or rodent infestation. But for the most part, she says, her job is routine, reminding employees to wash their hands, making sure food is stored properly, enduring nervous jokes about her name when she introduces herself to restaurant owners.

“I hear them all the time,” she said. “And I just tell them, ‘Be glad I’m not your doctor.’ ”