16.nov.06
Philadelphia Inquirer
Patrick Kerkstra and John Sullivan
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/dining/16022709.htm?source=rss&channel=philly_dining
Interim Health Commissioner Carmen Paris was cited as telling a City Council hearing yesterday that Philadelphia's Department of Public Health would need to nearly double its inspection staff to examine Philadelphia's 15,000 eateries as often as the FDA recommends.
Councilwoman Marian Tasco, who chaired the hearing, was quoted as saying, "The department is grossly understaffed. With all the responsibilities they have... that's clearly not enough staff to adequately provide the inspections needed to protect the public."
The story says that the hearing was prompted by a June Inquirer report that found Philadelphia was the only city of the nation's 10 largest that did not require annual inspections or regularly inspect mobile food carts on the street.
The city was inspecting food establishments an average of once every 15.4 months, compared with the thrice-annual inspections recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for most restaurants.
Only two of seven Council committee members attended the hearing, and Tasco had no immediate recommendations for a fix.
She promised more hearings on the matter, and said the city would have to give some "serious thought" to "increasing the complement of inspectors in the Health Department" during the next budget cycle, though she doubted it would be fiscally feasible to double the staff in a single year.
The city has 32 inspectors. Even 60 inspectors would be hard pressed to meet the FDA's exacting (though voluntary) standards, but would help the department inspect restaurants and other eateries about as often as most other major U.S. cities do.
National experts said in June that Philadelphia's food-inspections system performs poorly compared with other major cities.
But the city suffers from more than just a shortage of inspectors, The Inquirer found. Unlike in other cities, inspectors do not target high-risk restaurants or repeat violators and don't post inspection reports so customers can see how well a restaurant meets sanitation standards.
During the last few years, 475 eateries had at least one critical violation three years running, according to records. A critical violation is one that could cause illness.
Seventy-three restaurants had a three-year total of more than 20 critical violations each, with many marked as repeat violations.
Mouse infestations were the most common violation, discovered 1,162 times at 800 restaurants in 2005 alone.
To read the original story and latest results of Philadelphia's restaurant inspections, go to http://go.philly.com/inspect