IT WAS JUST ANOTHER BUSINESS LUNCH AT Dakota’s on Akard Street, the popular downtown underground bistro, On Aug. 11,1995, three people shared a seafood and vegetable appetizer and each ordered the special of the day-pasta with cream sauce and sausage, Two days later, all three were sharing symptoms a doctor said were consistent with food poisoning-vomiting, fever, diarrhea, and the chills, One member of the party called in a complaint to city health officials.
An inspector called back to tell the complainant that he had checked out the restaurant and sent food samples to the lab for bacteria analysis. The tests came back negative, so the complaint was considered unfounded, What the diner didn’t know, however, was that the inspector found a host of health-code violations: ham stored at 55 degrees ( 10 degrees warmer than what is considered safe), grease on the bar floor, cleaning chemicals stored next to sugar packets, a dirty refrigerator, unsatisfactory hand washing practices (the sink in the employee restroom had no soap), and fruit flies swarming near the onions, potatoes, and bread crumbs. Dakota’s scored a 68 out of a possible 100 on the inspection, with 15 violations in all, including four “critical” violations that can pose a serious public health risk.
But without a positive bacteria reading, the health department did not consider the poor inspection to be conclusive proof thai the lunch at Dakota’s caused the illnesses. Of course there were no leftovers from the meal in question by the time the samples were taken, so the lab tested similar food prepared more than a week later. It had been the same story three earlier times someone complained about getting ill after eating at Dakota’s-unfounded. Only once, in 1986, did a lab sample confirm contamination at the restaurant, when a shrimp appetizer that left two people vomiting and suffering with severe diarrhea for days tested positive for staphylococci.
As a result of thai August inspection, Dakota’s did receive a $200 citation for the presence of fruit flies, a persistent problem there for years. This time the inspector warned that, more fines would follow if the problems weren’t fixed when he returned within the next 10 days. On the follow-up inspection (26 days later), Dakota’s scored a respectable 92 and received no citations, despite still having a major fruit-fly infestation. As D Magazine went to press in early February, the restaurant had not been inspected since the September visit.
Keeping tabs on Dallas’ 4,850 food-service establishments-2,770 are restaurants, while the rest include school cafeterias, convenience stores, and swimming pools-is an all-but-overwhelming task for the city’s 15 health inspectors who work in the Food and Commercial Sanitation section of the Environmental and Health Services Department. ” We just try to keep them all on the upper end of the scale,” says Herb Harker, assistant director of the Environmental and Health Services Department. “I’d say about 90 percent of them have no problems that might get people sick.”
“Of course we’d like to see that number be more like 99 percent. ” But that’s unlikely to happen, because the current system for health-code inspection and enforcement is outdated, overburdened, and inconsistent. Health-department policy is not always health-department practice, and as a result, many dirty restaurants slip through the cracks. When inspectors do find problems, that doesn’t mean they will be promptly corrected. In 1994. Dallas conducted more than 16,000 inspections (that’s not including 4,000 lor temporary events like the State Fair of Texas or Taste of the West End), leaving each food-safety inspector responsible for monitoring almost 350 locales (100 more than the national average). Inspectors noted more than 100,000 health-code violations, ranging from virtually harmless oversights such as mislabeling stored food to potentially deadly procedural errors such as improper thawing.
Usually these offenses command little more than a wrist slap-resulting in a warning or, in about 1 percent of the cases, a $200 ticket. The restaurant’s overall inspection score is determined by the number of violations; each one counts between one and five points off from a perfect score of 100. The score for the most part tracks a typical high-school grading system. A 60 or below is considered failing, and legally the establishment can be closed immediately, though usually the inspector will give the restaurant a chance to do better on a sort of make-up inspection the following day. Inspection scores and findings are open records for anyone wanting to burrow through the files at the health department’s East Dallas office, but the city does not require restaurants to post their inspection sheets, So the diner remains oblivious to any less-than -sanitary conditions, and even restaurants with the most serious violations can continue to operate kitchens that inspectors have deemed unsafe.
Slider & Blues on Hillcrest Road at Northwest Highway, for example, has had recurring problems. A 1991 inspection found a few minor violations and one serious one-a broken dishwasher-resulting in a score of 80. Written comments instructed the restaurant to “provide a Registered Food Service Manager-at once.” An RFSM is an employee certified in understanding sanitation dangers, and a city ordinance requires one at every restaurant. The next inspection gave the same warning, this time being the “final notice! ” But the burger and beer joint did not comply until 1995, when a May inspection score of 64 yielded four citations-one for continually ignoring the RFSM rule, another for the presence of flies. The restaurant also received warnings for a pool of foul-smelling waste water outside, for storing raw food beneath cooked food, for keeping oil and window cleaner atop a box of toothpicks, and for letting meat sit at dangerous temperatures. (This time it was the chili; on a previous inspection, pepperoni, ground beef, and sausage were found at temperatures conducive to bacteria growth.) The follow-up inspection eight days later scored a much-improved 97.
Yellow, on McKinney Avenue, also has a less-than-impeccable record. In November 1994, the pricey uptown cafe scored a 78, A gap beneath the front door was large enough for insects and small rodents to squeeze through, and toxic items such as bleach and toilet-bowl cleaner sat in storage next to food. The next inspection in June 1995 yielded a 76, with many of the same problems, as well as a dishwasher that would not sanitize properly. The evaluation also offered the additional instruction: “Do not store food in the bathroom. ” Yellow fared better on the July follow-up with an 87, but the restaurant hadn’t fixed the gap under the door and eight other minor violations. “Keep garbage tied in bags to eliminate maggot and fly problem,” was the special direction this time. Yellow has never received a citation.
And at The Palm, on Ross Avenue in the West End, inspection scores have been mediocre recently. An April 1995 evaluation tallied a 79, with point deductions for employees drinking beverages in the kitchen, not washing their hands after smoking, and not wearing adequate hair restraints. The inspector also found seemingly minor violations such as unencased light bulbs near food, openings in a back door that could allow bugs to enter the restaurant, a defective sink, and an ice scoop stored inside the ice machine. (Ice is considered food, and therefore should not come in contact with the scoop handle.) The bad hand-washing practices and the defective sink were two critical offenses noted on inspections in September 1993 and June 1994, each of which found more than a dozen total violations and resulted in scores of 78. And on each of these inspections, The Palm was marked off for not having a Registered Food Service Manager. Restaurants are supposed to be inspected at least once every six months, but The Palm has escaped with only one inspection a year since 1993 and during that time has never received a citation.
Unsanitary restaurants are not a new problem for Dallas, which ranks second nationally (behind Houston) for how often we eat out-4.3 times a week according to the New York-based Zagat Survey. As long ago as 1977, D Magazine reported on Dallas’ dirtiest diners and the lenient treatment they received from the city. Since then, all types of eateries, from hot-dog stands to five-star restaurants, have continued to elude the hyper-extended arm of the health department and to run kitchens that violate city code. What has changed over the past 19 years is that there are now 850 more restaurants and food-service establishments, and three fewer health inspectors responsible for preventing diseases such as E. coli and staph poisoning, botulism, salmonellosis, and hepatitis A. The health department points to the small number of confirmed illnesses as a sign of a job well done, but the potential for a major outbreak is only a substandard refrigerator away.
ARMED WITH THERMOMETERS, FLASHLIGHTS, CHEMICAL TEST papers, and black lights (to show roach tracks and rodent urine), inspectors sec restaurants in constant violation of the city’s health code every day. They use the standard 44 -item check list of FDA-suggested safety guidelines that has seen little revision since the early 1970s. Six additional items cover local ordinances, mostly regulations for displaying various permits and certifications. Inspectors circle the violations and deduct the appropriate points from the perfect score of 100. Most problems are one- and two-point offenses, while the 13 critical violations cost either four or five points. A few inches at the bottom of the legal-size inspection page are reserved for the inspector’s instructions.
Some typical comments found on this year’s inspection reports: “maintain potentially hazardous food at a safe temperature”; “provide soap and paper towels at the employee hand-sink”; “rid ice machine of roaches and disinfect”; “styrofoam cup is not an ice scoop”; “no cooking outside the restaurant”; “store food at least six inches off the ground”; and “a towel does not count as covering food.”
For each offense, the inspector writes a “Notice of Violation,” essentially a warning. The restaurant then has a specified time to correct each problem, which usually isn’t until the next routine inspection. Criticals-which include spoiled food, temperature problems, re-serving unwrapped food, poor employee hygiene, sewage problems, inadequate hand- and dish-washing facilities, potential insect and rodent infestation, and improper storage of toxic chemicals–are supposed to be fixed sooner, sometimes the same day depending on the severity. “Criticals are what really matter to us,” says the city’s Herb Harker. “They are the items most likely to get people sick and pose an immediate health risk.”
Any critical violation or repeat non-critical violation can result in a citation. Most restaurant managers pay the standard fine of $200, but if they wish, they can contest the citation in court. Though it has never happened, a judge or jury conviction can raise the fine as high as $2,000. Harker believes citations are an effective way of forcing compliance from restaurants that have refused to correct violations, “A few,’ citations and you can change anyone’s mind,” he says. But often this is not the case. In fact, paying a citation essentially gives a restaurant a clean slate, so the next violation will merit only a warning-even for critical violations.
That’s what happened at Landry’s Seafood House on Market Street in the West End, where citations have led to fixes that are only temporary. In June 1994, the restaurant was tagged with 20 violations, three critical. Landry’s was serving food that had been sitting out uncovered, the food preparation table was dirty and had open bottles of cleaning chemicals on it, the bathroom door didn’t shut properly, and roaches roamed the corners of the kitchen. The score: 68. When the inspector returned nine days later, there were only 15 violations, but five of them were criticals (score: 65). He found raw shrimp kept at dangerous temperatures and observed an employee fail to wash his hands. The dishwasher was defective and the roaches had yet to relocate. He issued two citations and came back again five days later to a much-improved kitchen that scored an 89 with no criticals. But two inspections later, in August 1995, Landry’s score had dropped back to a 65, with more improper temperatures, more toxic chemicals stored near food, and more general dirtiness. The inspector also found some spoiled meat.
The health department does have the power to close a food-service establishment, as it did 79 times in 1995. In 60 of these incidents, the closure was just for a matter of hours-long enough to fix a specific problem. And many were at convenience stores selling sandwiches or at bars with small kitchens. Obviously, closing a restaurant is a much more serious affair because shutting down the kitchen entails stopping the entire operation. When more extensive improvements are necessary, health officials give the establishment an opportunity to “voluntarily” close for at least 24 hours, which happened 19 times last year. Closure really means inspectors happened upon a violation so egregious diners were in immediate danger. To reopen, the restaurant needs a score of 85 with no criticals. (But again, sometimes the rules are bent. )
Some of the restaurants closed in 1995:
Ricardo’s Restaurante Mexicano. on Midway Road in North Dallas, was closed temporarily on June 6 when an inspector found waste water backing up all over the kitchen floor and a dishwasher not sanitizing properly.
The New Orleans Seafood Parlor on Live Oak Street near downtown, was shut down after scoring a 67 on a March 3 inspection. A sewage back-up had overflowed into the kitchen and milk was stored at a balmy 58 degrees. Generally the restaurant’s scores had been in the mid-80s. But it was marked down in 1993 for re-serving uneaten single-service items, and in 1994, a family of six filed a food-borne illness complaint after the whole clan came down with diarrhea, fevers, cramps, headaches, and vomiting.
The Colonnade Room at the guest lodge of the Cooper Clinic, on Preston Road in North Dallas, was closed in February for having no hot water in both the dishwasher and the hand-sink. The inspection also found food stored uncovered and a dirty counter. The dishwasher had been found defective three years earlier during an inspection that also noted a violation for storing raw shrimp just above food that was ready to eat.
Mandarin Garden, on Spring Valley Road in North Dallas, also closed in February to clean the kitchen, rid the place of a severe roach infestation, and fix some leaky plumbing.
Brownie’s Restaurant, on East Grand Avenue in East Dallas, was shut down in March after years of sanitation problems. Inspectors found a pile of floor slop coalescing with mop water beneath dish racks, and roaches scurrying everywhere. Brownie’s has a history of severe roach and rodent infestations noted on many inspections since 1982, when health officials took pictures to document the rat and mice droppings piled up in the food storage room. The feces covered an open box of toothpicks and surrounded uncovered food. In February 1994. a patron complained of seeing a rat run across the dining room floor, and in March another diner claimed to have found a roach in a nacho dinner. The resulting inspection noted no evidence of insects was found, yet an inspection three months later reported roaches in the bathroom and on the baker’s table.
Most restaurants will close voluntarily not just to get the health department off their backs, but because they fear the “death penalty”-a forced closure. But according to Harker, “It never comes to that, Forced closures almost never happen.”
In part, that’s because any restaurant owner who does not want to shut down can tie the hands of health inspectors in a legal battle that can take months to resolve-all the while keeping the place open as the court sorts out the circumstances surrounding the supposed threats to public health, If the city tries to play hardball, all it takes is a good lawyer to exploit the inconsistencies and technicalities of the inspection process,
For example, take Vincent’s Seafood Restaurant on Northwest Highway near Bachman Lake. During the past 10 years, Vincent’s has posed a huge problem for the health department. Inspectors have written up owner Angelo Stergios for hundreds of violations and issued him dozens of citations, for most of which he has paid the $200 fine. Yet each time the inspector returned, he usually found the same violations uncorrected. In July 1986, a woman checked into Medical City for eight days after coming down with bloody diarrhea. Her doctor diagnosed it as a symptom of salmonella poisoning, which she believed she got after eating Vincent’s red snapper with crab sauce. Two weeks later, someone else filed a food-borne illness complaint after eating oysters and shrimp Creole. The inspection that followed the first complaint found 14 violations, with two criticals, just as was the case on a routine inspection a week earlier. The inspection for the second complaint found 12 violations and again two criticals, one for a bug zapper hanging above the grill. The inspector issued Stergios two citations-one because the owner was drinking a beverage in the kitchen, the other because weevils had taken up residence in the flour and sugar.
Vincent’s was not inspected again until February 1987, when it racked up 13 violations, nine of which were repeat offenses. An inspector came back in April: 14 violations, eight repeats. He returned yet again in June. Vincent’s score had dropped to a dismal 50. This time six of the 22 violations were criticals. The owner voluntarily closed the restaurant for 24 hours. To reopen, a closed restaurant has to score at least an 85 with no criticals. Still, the health department allowed Stergios to unlock his doors after he scored an 80 with one critical for failure to properly store toxic cleaners. The city believed Vincent’s finally was making a good-faith effort to comply with the health code.
But in May 1988, the restaurant’s score plummeted to a shocking 48. The inspector issued six citations-for dangerous temperatures, faulty equipment, a hose without a backflow prevention device, a rodent and fly problem, improper chemical storage, and the chef drinking a soda in the kitchen, A June 7 inspection revealed 14 violations, including improper temperatures on the serving line (the cole slaw was too hot and the prime rib too cold), food on the floor in the freezer, skillets with uncovered food in the walk-in cooler, rusty shelves, rust in the ice machine, dirty walls, and open bottles of cleaning chemicals on the food preparation counter. A cutting board sat atop a dirty towel; the soda gun was moldy; the floors were dirty; and flies infested the kitchen, the fish area, the bread room, the dish room, and the store room. Vincent’s also was re-using shucked and sucked oyster shells to serve the Oysters Rockefeller.
Beverly Weaver, who then was the head of the Food and Commercial Sanitation section, told Stergios his restaurant would have to close. He promised to comply if she would just let him stay open for one more night. He claimed that otherwise he would be out of business because he was in the middle of a dinner rush and was preparing tor a large party to arrive. Weaver agreed, but when inspectors showed up eight days later, on June 15, Vincents scored another 50. The restaurant was still reusing oyster shells, and it hadn’t gotten rid of dented cans marked for disposal on a previous inspection. Skillets of food still sat in the cooler uncovered, and another employee was cited for drinking a beverage in the kitchen.
So on June 16, the health department suspended Vincent’s permit for seven days. But Stergios’ attorney filed an appeal the same day, allowing the restaurant to stay open. The restaurant somehow won its appeal and it was back to business as usual at Vincent’s. The low scores continued and so did the complaints, In 1992 a patron reported a roach falling from the ceiling onto the table. The complaint inspection reported “no insects found,” even though an inspection a week later instructed the restaurant to exterminate for flies in the kitchen and dining room. Over the years, several people have filed complaints against Vincent’s after getting ill, but all their claims were labeled unfounded. In 1994, Vincent’s low score was 73, its high score 91. Despite its troubled history, the restaurant was inspected only once in 1995-scoring a 74 with three critical violations, one for storing baked potatoes at 78 degrees.
HEALTH OFFICIALS SAY THEIR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY IS TO KEEP people from getting sick. How well are they doing? It’s hard to say. Despite seeing thousands of violations each year that could lead to illness, they point to the fact that there were no con-firmed food-borneillness cases in 1995. But Weaver, who started working with the department 18 years ago as an inspector (she is now director of the Environmental and Health Services Department), admits that proving food-borne illness is extremely difficult. “We have to show that bacteria was present in the individual and in the sample and that the food sample was consumed by the individual,” she explains. “And almost always, by the time we hear about it, there’s none of that food sample left.”
Last year, not a single confirmed case of food-borne illness occurred in Dallas County. Yet the city health department answered 307 food-borne illness complaints and pulled 128 samples. Two came back positive for staph bacteria and 17 for fecal coliform. Most experts agree these numbers represent only a small fraction of the actual illnesses. “It’s not well reported,” says Dallas County epidemiologist Dr. Charles Haley. “You might have 20 people ill from a restaurant, but only two go to the doctor and get diagnosed. And they won’t be sure what it was they ate that made them sick. ” Haley says small outbreaks affecting between two and 10 people happen regularly. “But our level of surveillance on the smaller outbreaks is not too good. We find out about them more or less by accident,” The bottom line: People do get sick, even if the health department can’t confirm it. And it can happen anywhere.
“Improper temperatures can be very serious,” says Harker. “When there’s bacteria, even though cooking can kill it, they leave behind waste. It can be very toxic and cooking it won’t get rid of it.” In extreme cases, bacteria in food can be life-threatening. Though such incidents are definitely rare, health officials see part of their job as preventing situations like the one at a Tacoma, Wash., Jack in the Box in 1993, where tainted burger meat caused more than 90 percent of the cases in an outbreak of E. coli that left 500 sick and three dead. But inspections can only do so much. As Weaver says, “An inspection is only a snapshot of that facility at that moment in time.”
SO WHAT’S GOING ON WHEN INSPECTORS AREN’T LOOKING? THE assistant manager of a restaurant at an expensive Dallas hotel says that what customers don’t see is downright gross, if not unhealthy. “If food falls on the floor, you can bet it goes back on the plate,” he says. “And if it’s a $17 prime rib, I’ll guarantee that even if it falls in the garbage, it’s going to be rinsed off and served,” As for buffets, “all they are is extra food from earlier banquets. And you know it hasn’t been kept below 40 degrees or above 130. But the health inspector doesn’t know that, and you know we’d never tell a guest that.” The assistant manager, who asked to remain anonymous, is a Registered Food Service Manager at his restaurant, which does pretty well by health department standards, scoring an 86 with only one critical violation on its last inspection.
A few restaurateurs don’t even try to hide their violations. Indeed, for some it becomes a game. Just ask Harvey Gaugh, owner of Goff’s Hamburgers on Lovers Lane near the Tollway. Inspectors consider him a troublemaker. Over the past several decades, they have issued him dozens of citations, and he has contested every one of them in court, winning almost every time. As the curmudgeonly hamburger guru sees it, “They’ve got it in for Harvey Gaugh.”
But inspectors say his average score is 73 because he simply refuses to comply with the health code. “Every industry needs to be looked at,” Gaugh says. “But they’re wasting time and the city’s money. If we were poisoning people, it would be something different.” He points to a time when he ran a hose out of the kitchen to clean off the patio. He was cited because the hose had no backflow prevention device. “That’s ridiculous. There’s not going to be any backflow. Have you ever tried to push water up a hill with a pitchfork? Come on. I get tickets all the time for having the door propped open. Rats and roaches slip in through cracks, not through the front door.”
Gaugh pays his lawyer $100 to contest each ticket. Once cited for having no soap in the bathroom, he brought to court a box of S.O.S, pads stored next to the sink as evidence. “It says right here,” he said, pointing to the box, “soap pads. It may be harsh, but it’s soap.” That case was dismissed, just as all but five have been. (He currently has four cases pending.) Though Goff’s scored a 59 on a recent inspection- no thermometers, no chemical test kits, improper hand washing, and faulty counter surfaces were among the 23 violations that netted him five citations-the people having the most trouble at Goff’s may be the inspectors. Once, while an inspector was checking out the walk-in cooler, Gaugh shut the door on her and turned off the power.
“Everything gets dismissed for no apparent reason, for little technicalities,” laments Harker about dealing with Harvey Gaugh. However, Gaugb isn’t the only restaurateur who takes advantage of a court process that seems to favor the restaurant owner. Of the 469 citations appealed in 1995-almost half of the total number of citations issued- 222 resulted in no payment by restaurant personnel. Many were held over for deferred adjudication, others were dismissed because of later compliance or for lack of evidence. Of those who had to pay, most received reduced fines, usually as low as $100. “It’s frustrating, real frustrating,’’ says Harker. “But we have nothing to do with what the court does, so we just keep at them. We’re trying our best.”
BEING A DALLAS HEALTH INSPECTOR IS A TOUGH, EXHAUSTING job. Inspectors are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree in biology, yet some earn less than $24,000 a year, and none earn more than $35,200. The Food and Commercial Sanitation program sees a lot of turnover, as most inspectors will leave for a cushier suburban job if possible. “We stay full as long as there are no openings in the suburbs,” says Harker. This turnover (Dallas lost five inspectors last year) further backlogs the department, as two inspectors usually share responsibilities for covering a vacant district while still trying to handle the establishments in their own areas. In the suburbs, the pay is higher, the workload is lighter, and the quality of health inspections is better.
The city of Piano is considered a leader in the restaurant inspection business. Inspectors there have, for the most part, abandoned the sanitation checklist mentality for an approach based on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point concept. They believe the best way to teach restaurants how to prevent food-borne illness is to show them where chances for contamination are most likely in the preparation procedure. Piano also assigns restaurants into risk categories-according to such criteria as past inspection performance, type of foods served, and preparation procedures-with more frequent inspections required of the higher risk groups. These steps have helped turn around a program that the health department in 1990 described as “inadequate.” The department, like its Dallas counterpart, was overwhelmed, underfunded, and unable to keep up with its restaurants.
Piano hired three more inspectors, making the total eight, to look after the city’s 660 food-service establishments. In the first three years of the program, the percentage of high-risk locales decreased from 44 percent to 38 percent, despite the addition of 111 new establishments. The average number of inspections for high risks increased from 0.8 a year in 1990 to 5.7 a year in 1994. And because lower-risk restaurants pay a lower annual permit fee, “there is an incentive to get out of the high-risk category,” says Environmental Health Manager Brian Collins, who recently traveled to New Zealand to consult on restaurant inspection systems.
Another innovation: Since 1993, Piano has shown inspection scores on public-access cable television. The city scrapped the old scoring system, which Dallas still uses, for a new 100-point scale: 95-100, excellent; 90-94, good; 80-89, acceptable; 70-79, marginal. Any restaurant scoring below a 70 was closed immediately, which happened 13 times in 1995. And last month, Piano abandoned numerical ratings, freeing inspectors to make a more subjective evaluation of specific health threats revealed during HACCP tests.
Richardson also reports its scores on cable television. And Irving doubled its number of inspectors to eight, allowing them to make monthly visits to restaurants. With such frequent interaction, inspectors build a personal relationship with the owners. Garland has tried to improve relationships by holding an annual banquet recognizing the cleanest restaurants. The top 5 percent receive a plaque and a waiver on the next year’s annual food-service permit. It’s all part of an effort to improve health-code compliance by ending the traditionally adversarial relationship between restaurant managers and health inspectors.
In Addison, the more cooperative approach has worked. Though inspectors there still use the 44-point checklist, focusing on the criticals, they write very few citations-not one in 1995. But that’s not to say they don’t take violations seriously. On the contrary, every critical violation mandates a return visit within 24 hours. In part, that’s because the more than 120 restaurants in Addison are a major part of the town’s economy. “We can have 20,000 people dining here at any given time,” says Neil Gayden, one of the suburb’s two inspectors. “I know people get sick out there. While there’s not a great chance, with so many people eating out, it’s a ticking time bomb to a certain extent. If mistakes continue long enough, they will end in a food-borne illness. And in Addison, we can’t have people getting sick, and we certainly can’t be fighting the restaurants. That’s not how to get compliance,” he says.
“The current scoring system most health departments use needs to go away. That’s our philosophy,” Gayden says. “A score really tells you nothing. You could have raw sewage all over the kitchen floor and still score a 95, but that’s not a safe kitchen, and safe kitchens are our bottom line.” The Addison health department received 10 calls in 1995 complaining of sickness, most often stomach aches. “Its almost impossible to prove food-borne illness from a particular establishment,” says Gayden, “so the best thing we can do is a HACCP and show the restaurant how to make sure it doesn’t happen again,”
“It’s nice not to have to fight city hall,” says Nate Peck, owner of Nate’s Seafood & Steakhouse on Midway Road. “We listen to the inspectors because they make our jobs easier. ” Peck, a Vietnam veteran who sports glasses, a beard, and a thick Louisiana accent, helped launch the Landry’s chain in 1980. “In Dallas, they talk in ambiguity. They say a lot, but they don’t tell you anything,” he says. “But in Addison, they are like a manager I don’t have to pay. They’re like benevolent dictators who make sure things are done the right way.”
Obviously, this more cooperative atmosphere is easier to create in a smaller city. “We get to know the individual kitchens,” says inspector Kelly Kirkpatrick, “so we know where to look. We know where the bad fridge is.”
On a recent inspection of Nate’s, she knew to look at the dishwasher, which was having a sanitizing problem. Peck had tried to rig it to pump in an extra detergent, but his fix was ineffective. Kirkpatrick marked it as a critical violation and said she’d be back in 24 hours. When she returned later that day, it was fixed. “The bureaucrats in Addison are professionals. They’re pro-business,” Peck says. “They got their rules, and don’t get me wrong, Kelly is tough-she can be downright nasty- but they got their rules and they help us follow them.”
Addison’s current system has been in effect for almost seven years, and during that time, inspections have increased and scores have improved overall (even though inspectors there pay little attention to an individual score). “It’s great here,” says Kirkpatrick, a former air pollution inspector in Dallas who, at 32, sees this as the final job in her career. “This is the Cadillac of health inspection jobs.”
That’s not to say Addison doesn’t encounter its share of problems. Gayden remembers a case at Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant now out of business: “I walked in and they had a dozen Peking ducks hanging to dry in the dining room. When I told them you can’t have dead animals out there, the owner said to me, ’you mean 10 years of American law can supersede 4,000 years of Chinese tradition?’ “
Another unhealthful, albeit humorous, incident occurred at Hunan Taste, also no longer in business. Employees there not only had a live chicken in the kitchen, but they were drying cabbages by placing the heads between two boards and driving a car back and forth over them. Managers said they had no other way to dry the cabbage, so Gayden helped them find an inexpensive, used food dehydrator.
“It’s hard sometimes,” he says, “but when they see us rolling up our sleeves to help them fix a problem, they gain confidence in our judgment.”
And most do take their recommendations very seriously. When Atchafalaya River Cafe received a food-borne illness complaint from someone who ate their dirty rice, a HACCP evaluation revealed three temperature danger zones. Gayden, employing his “we’d-rather-teach-them-than-cite-them” outlook on inspections, showed staffers how they could cut down on some of the potentially troublesome heating and reheating. The restaurant sent the recommendations to its national office, which in turn rewrote the recipe for the entire chain.
Francesco Secchi owned and operated Ferrari’s in Dallas for 14 years and now runs Ferrari’s Villa on Midway Road in Addison. “I agree with them 99.9 percent of the time here,” he says. In Dallas, that wasn’t the case. “We had a lot of misunderstandings. They did rush jobs on us and never explained anything. It was a complete lack of communication,” he recalls. “And many times we had new inspectors, and it was like they were trying to prove themselves, show us who’s boss. “
NOT SURPRISINGLY, RESTAURATEURS IN DALLAS INSIST THEIR kitchens are clean and complain that scores can be determined on an inspector’s whim. “A bad score doesn’t really mean much,” says Dakota’s general manager Robert Skusca. “Sometimes it’s a new inspector. One time it was a guy who came in with a big chip on his shoulder. They feel the need to be tough or something.” But The Palm’s Al Bierat sees the inspectors differently. “The health department is not our enemy,” he says, “It helps maintain the place. When you’ve got 52 employees, it’s hard to make sure they always do everything right.” Bierat says that despite several scores in the 70s over the past few years, the violations at his restaurant have been minor and do not contribute to a dirty kitchen. (He invited D Magazine on a walkthrough, saying “We have nothing to hide.”)
Dallas is starting to make some of the changes the suburbs made years ago, as the city prepares to replace the FDA’s 1973 model food code- the basis for the current inspection process-with its 1993 model food code. The new code is expected to be approved by the state by the end of the year, and Dallas will likely incorporate it into city code soon after. Significant changes in the model, which merely suggests guidelines, attempt to rid health departments of a sanitation-based code in favor of a code that focuses more specifically on safety, preparation processes, and clean environments-essentially making the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point concept the standard for evaluating food safety.
The new code is designed to help restaurant managers as much as inspectors. Written in layman s English, it specifically explains why each violation is potentially hazardous, The code requires managers to understand how food-borne illnesses occur, and makes it clear that they are personally responsible for making employees understand it as well. Proper hand washing is described in detail, down to the required use of nail brushes. Also included in the code are handy temperature/time charts specifying safe parameters for various foods.
On the enforcement level, the new code standardizes procedures with more detailed provisions for notices, citations, and closures, and also includes a provision for public disclosure of poor-performing restaurants. Of course this won’t solve all of the health problems in Dallas restaurants, but it should make the job of the Food and Commercial Sanitation program easier.
Part of the problem in Dallas is that people don’t know how difficult it is for the city health department to keep up with the mountains of health-code violations. The city council has little interest because constituents almost never complain about a restaurant to their councilman. The Food and Commercial Sanitation program operates on a $988,000 budget-about half the amount the city earmarks for WRR-FM101, the city-owned classical-music radio station. “It’s a stepchild,” says Ginger Shaffer, a former Dallas health inspector and now chief sanitarian at Arlington’s environmental health department. “In Dallas, restaurant inspections are at the bottom of the priority list. Why? Because you can’t see your tax dollars in action and we all assume restaurants are safe.”
City officials believe the restaurant-inspection program is properly funded and effectively run. “It’s not a political issue, ” says City Councilman Craig McDaniel, whose district includes most of the major restaurant meccas in town– Greenville and McKinney avenues, Oak Lawn, and the Knox-Henderson area. “We don’t hear about it from anyone, so we leave it to the professionals at the health department.”
Ramon Miguez, tje assistant city manager who oversees chat department, describes Dallas’ restaurant-inspection system as “a fairly well-run operation” that is in fact not ignored by City Hall. ” It has to be a high priority in any city this size,” he says. “Our inspectors may be a little on the tough side…but how many real problems do we have? Not very many.”
PERHAPS THE CITY IS DOING FINE. MOST restaurants operate in that middle ground-not exemplary, not dangerous-and will correct a critical violation at least after receiving a citation. But inspectors are only scratching the surface, hoping to stay on top of the problems just enough to avert a major outbreak. City officials and the public alike assume the current health inspection system does a competent job of keeping kitchens clean. But health department files prove that a lot of the nastiness is merely swept under the rug. For a city that eats out as often as Dallas does (Beverly Weaver estimates that number to be a million times a day), we are rolling the dice each time we go out to eat, hoping that the places we choose are not those that are repeatedly cited by inspectors for potentially dangerous health violations.
In East Coast cities such as New York, restaurants are required to display their A, B, or C health rating in their window. North Carolina has abandoned fines, but strictly adheres to a point system-with more points deducted for repeat violations. Any restaurant below a 70 on a 100-point scale there is immediately closed.
in Dallas, however, the eater has no assurances that any restaurant is clean behind its kitchen doors. Granted, HACCP evaluations, Registered Food Service Managers, and computerization have improved the situation over the years. But the reality is that when it comes to food safety and sanitation in Dallas, we can only hope that what’s on our plate was not contaminated when someone or something slipped through the cracks.
Mesquite Grilled
A suburb that holds restaurant owners’ feet to the fire
THE MESQUITE HEALTH DEPARTMENT has a reputation as being the toughest in the state when it comes to health-code enforcement. The city’s restaurant inspectors rule with an iron fist inside a white glove. And it seems their harsh tactics have been effective.
In 1994, Mesquite’s four restaurant inspectors issued 457 citations and temporarily shut down 21 of its 418 food-service establishments-about 200 of which are full-service and fast-food restaurants. Dallas, by comparison, has more than 4,000 eateries, yet it issues only about 1,000 citations each year.
Mesquite became notorious for ticketing minor infractions, such as ice scoops stored in ice machines and trash bags tossed in dumpsters without twist-ties. Restaurant owners griped, feeling they were caught in a health-department speed trap.
“Mesquite was using restaurant fines as a revenue generator for other city departments,” charges Glenn Garey, general counsel for the Texas Restaurant Association, which sponsored legislation to curb what it saw as overzealous enforcement. The bill, killed in the 1995 legislative session because of some discrepancies over specific wording, attempted to make it illegal for health departments to take in more money from fines than the cost of running the restaurant inspection program.
Mesquite officials say their zero-tolerance philosophy was merely an effort to stress the importance of providing the community with clean and safe eating environments. And regardless of the griping, the city’s fierce enforcement has indeed fostered compliance. In 1995, Mesquite issued just 106 citations and closed only one establishment-for three hours.
Restaurant managers insist inspectors haven’t eased up. “They are still very strict,” says Mary Haas, an assistant manager at Tia’s, on LBJ Freeway. “We have a better realization now of what they demand. We know we have to follow everything to the letter of the law. ” -DM
