passopenrecords.org

We recently blogged on the State Agriculture Department’s posting restaurant inspections online. This is a great open records victory that’s been in the works for a long time. The Allentown Morning Call embarked on a series of stories in July 2005 that detailed restaurant inspections, showing that oversight of the state’s restaurants was haphazard and that the frequency of inspections varied widely.

The newspaper had to file written requests under the state’s Right-to-Know Law to get 200,000 food inspection records. And last week, the Agriculture Department’s database went live.

But thanks to a quirk that determines exactly who’s officially checking your local eatery, it turns out the victory isn’t so sweet.

As soon as the announcement was made, I started searching the website for some of my favorite restaurants (In the spirit of full disclosure, I spent my formative years working in restaurants - some MUCH cleaner than others.) and soon hit a curious roadblock: My favorite lunch place wasn’t on it. The Red Lobster I worked at in college wasn’t listed. I knew these places existed, so where was there data? And I wasn’t the only one: This Harrisburg food blogger posted about his difficulties with missing restaurant inspections.

Soon, thanks to the Patriot-News, we had our answer:

The state Department of Agriculture’s Web site lists inspection results only for those eateries under its jurisdiction, said Chris Ryder, the department’s press secretary. Several counties and municipalities — Harrisburg, Lower Paxton Twp., Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill among them — do their own inspections, which do not appear in the state’s database.

The problem isn’t confined to the midstate. 4 cities, 196 municipalities, and 6 counties in PA conduct their own restaurant inspections.

According to the story, many boroughs say if people file a right-to-know request, they’ll supply the inspections. Hmm. Wonder if that works in real life, or just in theory.

However, as the Chambersburg Public Opinion reports, at least one borough in the state makes adds an asterisk to their restaurant inspections: If you file a right-to-know request, they’ll only let you know if the restaurant passed inspection or not.

Chambersburg Borough Council — after a lobbying effort by some local restaurant owners — voted unanimously in late 2005 to keep the inspection reports private, saying the public only needs to know whether restaurants pass inspections. Restaurants open for business meet borough inspection criteria, they said.

And in Hanover Township, outside of York, the Hanover Evening Sun reports, “The only way to get local inspection reports is to go to the borough office or attend a Hanover Board of Health meeting.”

But wait! That’s not all! Word is that Harrisburg doesn’t have a restaurant inspector. (Note: these seem to be the unofficial minutes of the 6/5 meeting. As of June 12, the minutes for that meeting were not approved.)

With that little bit of information under my belt, I decided to check the zip code to the Capitol building (17120) on the Agriculture Department’s restaurant inspections database - the Capitol cafeteria isn’t listed either. The inspector-less City of Harrisburg is responsible for their inspections. Wonder what their status is?

On Tuesday, The Morning Call editorial board called for action.

The next step: a bill sponsored by state Rep. Mike Carroll, D-Luzerne and Monroe, to create a single, standardized inspection system throughout the state. The House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee is expected to discuss the proposed legislation this week. Clearly, a standardized system is the only way that Pennsylvanians can fully rely on the on-line records so that wherever they travel in the state, they can get trustworthy information about food safety and cleanliness.

We’ll have more as this develops.