City revamps policy for posting results
STAMFORD — Only four restaurants in Stamford currently show a “poor” ranking listed as their most recent health inspection report on the city’s website.
In the recent past, residents could find anywhere from a dozen failed inspections to 30 or 40 on the site at any given time.
But the drop in failures is not necessarily cause for celebration for city diners.
The reason so many eateries are listed as “fair,” “acceptable” or “best” is due to a policy change in how the city posts inspection reports.
In the past, any inspection, no matter the grade, would be uploaded automatically to the website.
But a few months ago, Health Department officials decided to only upload inspections with poor grades after a reinspection was performed, giving restaurant owners a chance to improve conditions without the poor grade being posted. That decision came after input from restaurant owners and the Stamford Downtown Special Services District.
Sandy Goldstein, president of the DSSD, said the concern was that restaurants weren’t given time to correct infractions
“I think it’s wrong for the Health Department to put it online.”
Sandy Goldstein, president of the Stamford Downtown Special Services District, referring to first-time offenders
after an initial failed inspection.
Because of the previous policy, restaurants with otherwise good safety and health records in the past could be labeled as “poor” on the city’s website with just one bad inspection, even if the infractions found in the inspection were correctable, she said.
“I think it’s wrong for the Health Department to put it online,” she said, referring to first-time offenders.
However, Goldstein said if a restaurant doesn’t fix a problem found in an inspection and fails a follow-up inspection, the city should be free to post that information online.
“I think the public has a right to know,” she said.
The policy change has severely cut down the number of failed inspections currently on the site. On top of that, what officials have said was a small technical glitch has
made a number of inspections previously available on the website disappear.
Deborah Miller, the interim director of environmental inspections, said that after the policy change, a sign-off in the form of a checked box was required by inspectors before an inspection could be posted. That has lead to some inspections being kept off line by mistake, and some older inspections from 2017 and 2018 dropping out of the system because they didn’t have the sign-off box checked, she said.
Miller said inspectors are working to catch up on old inspections by going in and signing off on them, but it has proved to be a laborious effort. Nonetheless, she said the goal is to have all the unchecked inspections uploaded properly before the end of the month.
The vast majority of restaurants in Stamford have the highest possible health score.
The number of “poor” inspection grades fluctuates often, as the city conducts follow-up inspections to failing establishments and either issues another substandard report card or improves the eatery’s grade to “fair,” “acceptable” or “best.”
Connecticut’s system grades food-serving establishments on a 100-point scale. Each infraction deducts points from a restaurant’s grade. A “poor” grade results from a score below 80 or a restaurant receiving one or more four-point violations.
A four-point mark is the most serious infraction an establishment can receive and includes problems such as food stored or served at an improper temperature, poorly stored food, improperly stored or labeled toxic items, and lax personal hygiene among staff.
One four-point violation automatically results in a poor grade, even if the restaurant receives an overall high score.
During restaurant visits, Stamford health inspectors test food to see if it falls within the bacteria “danger zone,” which is between 41 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit. Food in that range is more prone to bacterial growth.
When restaurants get a poor grade on an inspection, which are conducted without warning, they are supposed to be re-inspected within a few weeks. If the restaurant gets a low grade again, the owner is fined $150 and is required to appear before the city’s Health Inspection Division to discuss each infraction and establish a plan to address the problems.
A third violation means the business is subject to closure, at the discretion of the director of health. If the restaurant is shuttered, the owner must pay $300 to re-open.
To view the ratings of all Stamford restaurants, visit the city’s website.