A score below 69 is associated with "[p]oor food handling practices and overall general food facility maintenance.” See County of Los Angeles, Department of Health Services, Retail Food Inspection Guide, “Understanding Your Grade," http://www.lapublichealth.org.
88. A total of 989 restaurants out of 24,000 received closure orders in Los Angeles County in 2002. Most were temporary. See Martin Miller, “Five Years into L.A. County’s Grade-Posting Project, Most Restaurants Are Getting Top Marks,” Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2003.
89. The ordinance specifically requires that the grade card be posted within five feet of the point of entry. If the numeric grade is below a C, the restaurant is required to post the numeric grade in its window.
90. See Jin and Leslie, 2005, for a summary of these results. Jin and Leslie find that these changes arise from a combination of “sorting” (customers switching from restaurants with low grades to those with higher grades) and improvement in the hygiene practices of restaurants with lower ratings. See Jin and Leslie, 2003 and 2005.
91. See Jin and Leslie, 2006.
92. Along with anecdotal evidence, Jin and Leslie, 2005, p. 100, report that the distribution of grades around the critical scores of 89 (the line between an A and B) and 79 (between a B and C) show a dramatic upward spike around the higher number, implying that inspectors may choose to bump up scores. If such activity occurs only at break points, this may imply only a mild form of grade inflation.
93. Miller, “Five Years into L.A . County’s Grade-Posting Project, Most Restaurants Are Getting Top Marks.”
94. David Pierson, “Where ‘A’ is Not on the Menu: Chinese Eateries in an L.A. County Enclave Struggle with Hygiene Ratings,” Los Angeles Times, September 28, 2005.
95. An effort to replicate the Los Angeles County system in San Francisco faced fierce opposition when it was proposed in 2004. After a six-month battle, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a compromise measure requiring restaurants to post health inspection reports (but not summary grades), as well as merit symbols for those receiving high marks. See Suzanne Herel, “Health Ratings Win Approval,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 2004, p.B4. Efforts to adopt a similar system in San Bernardino County have also faced opposition from restaurant owners and restaurant associations. See Martin Hugo, “San Bernardino County Considers Grading Restaurants,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2004, p. B5; see also Martin Hugo, “S.B. County Restaurants May Soon Get Health Ratings, ” Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2004, p.B3.
96. Based on a survey by the National Conference of State Legislators in 2005. North Carolina's system is called the "Know the Score" program and uses a grading system similar to the one employed in Los Angeles. See N.C . Gen. Stat. §130A-249 (2005). Tennessee’s system also uses grade cards. See Tenn. Code Ann. §68–14 –317 (2001). See also Pytka, 2005.
97. These accidents and their causes were extensively reported on by Keith Bradsher of the New York Times in 2000.
98. Government Accountability Office, 2005b, p. 31.
