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Expired health inspection cards at Marin County restaurants
Restaurants in Marin County have plenty on the outside to draw customers inside. From their elaborate signs to their outdoor dining setups. But many of the health inspection cards posted are expired and the establishments havent been inspected in years.
Marin County, California - We got a letter from a viewer who said a number of Marin County health inspection placards on the front on restaurants and other food sellers seem to be expired and lacking a current safety inspection.
Marin is one of the state's top three wealthiest counties and is a bit behind on some inspections if you read the placard closely.
On Thursday afternoon, KTVU's Tom Vacar walked both sides of 12 blocks of Novato's Grant Avenue, checking every county restaurant's "PASS" sign. The state mandates every restaurant, cafe, food seller,and grocery store be inspected once a year, plus a lot more including all public swimming pools.
"It seems like it would be fairly important so that we know the places that we're eating are safe and we know the level of cleanliness," said Dave Ladrech who we met in San Rafael.
We randomly checked 36 signs in Novato and San Rafael. In Marin County alone, there are more than 1,500 inspection locations.
Six or seven highly educated, experienced and Registered Environmental Health Specialist inspectors share the very large inspections, training and paperwork load.
"It can take several years in school plus a couple of years on the job to really be able to do these inspections completely independently," said Marin County Community Development Director Sarah Jones.
Of the 36 places checked, 30 were within the one-year period. But, five were outside; one for almost two years and another completely blank.
So, 16% were out of date on the one-year inspection mandate.
"I didn't know that it was even possible that there weren't. So, yes, it's very important, very important. You know, we have a lot of rodents in Marin and probably all over the state and you know, you just want to know that somebody is really looking at stuff and that it's clean," said Mindy Steiner, a shopper we met in Novato.
Even though inspections may be past due, the previous two inspection dates are posted, suggesting that since the establishment passed those, they're likely still in compliance. "Yeah. That seems like it would be fine as long as they didn't have too many problems or infractions in the past that we'd be worried about," said Ladrech.
Inspectors must also constantly deal with many illegal, unlicensed "pop-up" vendors that often don’t maintain sanitary and food storage standards out on the streets, in plazas and at events.
Keeping up with all this is hard in Marin and everywhere else. "I think I would probably reduce something else in order to pay for that," said Ms. Steiner. "That would be a cost that we would very likely be putting into the permit fees," said Marin County's Jones.
Potential large fee increases, on top of already high fees that pay for the entire program, is not something that those inspected want or can't afford to pay.