NEW YORK, March 16 (Xinhua) -- For New York City diners whose appetites had been spoiled by scurrying vermin or uncleanliness while eating out, a letter grading system may help them decide where to eat starting this summer.
The New York City Board of Health is introducing a letter grade system this July to rate the sanitary conditions of the restaurants and their kitchens and storerooms health authorities have inspected.
"Anything that is going encourage people to clean up their act and protect the public is a good thing overall," said Tom Colicchio, owner of Craft and other restaurants.
Though the grading system rates eateries from A downward, it may take a while for diners and gourmets to see B's or C's.
City health authorities have decided to give restaurants which fail to meet the sanitary requirements the first time another month to prepare for yet another inspection.
During the reprieve period, a sign "grade pending" will appear in place of a letter.
While many customers may regard the reprieve as a rather lenient approach, critics of the new grading system have argued that even the "grade pending" sign or a letter B or C could prove disastrous to fine dining establishments in the city, which has been hailed as the dining capital of the world.
This is because the 24,000 restaurants in New York will be required to publicly display their grades for food safety and sanitation inspections conducted by the municipal health authorities.
Under the new grading system, restaurants will receive grades based on the number of violations documented during sanitary inspections, and restaurants receiving A's will be inspected less often than those receiving lower grades.
New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley described the new grading system as giving every potential customer instant access to important information.
"New York City restaurants are among the world's best, and these simple reforms will make them even better," said the commissioner. "Giving consumers more information will help make our restaurants safer and cleaner.
"The grade in the window will give you a sense of how clean the kitchen is -- and it will give every restaurant operator an incentive to maintain safe, sanitary conditions," he added.
But some restaurant owners called the letter grading system unfair.
"They're doing a disservice to the public," said Marc Murphy, vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association and owner of several restaurants in the city.
"Two flies can get you cited for a rodent violation and will hurt our reputation as the restaurant capital of the world," Murphy added.
Each year, the New York City Department of Health inspects 24,000 restaurants to monitor their compliance with the city's health codes, and most establishments maintain good or excellent conditions.
The department posts restaurant inspection reports on its website, and each report includes a numerical score reflecting the number and severity of sanitary violations documented.
The New York City Board of Health argues that the new letter grades will be simpler than numerical scores, and consumers won't need to go online to check them.
Tainted restaurant food causes several thousand hospitalizations in New York City each year, and as many as 10,000 emergency-room visits.
New York health authorities have claimed that after Los Angeles had introduced a letter grading system, the proportion of restaurants meeting the highest food-safety standards rose from 40 percent to more than 80 percent, and hospitalizations for food-borne illnesses fell.
