Ava Morollo of the Newton South newspaper Denebola has the story.
Two Newton South students contract norovirus from Beacon Street Chipotle
by Village 14 | Dec 10, 2015 | Newton | 13 comments
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Ava Morollo of the Newton South newspaper Denebola has the story.
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
First, I hope the best for all the people Chipotle has sickened. I’m not the least bit surprised by the problems affecting that chain. Their assembly line method of preparing food is disgusting. Should it really take multiple food service workers to handle rolling a burrito?
Now a general comment. Newton has seen an explosion of new restaurants in recent years. I’m thankful for that trend, because I almost never have a home-cooked meal. But I’m very concerned about the oversight of Newton’s restaurants. Newton health inspectors should be frequently visiting all our food establishments. Like many other places, Newton should be issuing a letter grade after each inspection, and restaurants should be required to post their grade at the door where customers can see it. But as I’ve mentioned countless times on this blog, absolutely no one in local government is looking out for the consumer. This must change, and we should start by issuing letter grades to restaurants without further delay.
Norovirus is incredibly contagious. We need all food service workers to have paid sick leave so they won’t lose badly needed income if they don’t come in to work because they’re sick – this is a fundamental public health measure. And in the case of suspected norovirus, they need to be told to stay home for 2 days after they become symptom-free because that’s how long it takes to stop being contagious.
@Mike – Newton restaurant public health grades are now available online, though it will take awhile until all have been re-inspected under the new grading system. At least one that had an unacceptable grade is now out of business.
http://www.newtonma.gov/gov/health/enviro/food_grading.asp
@MGWA– Thanks for the info. I checked out the link. The City’s initiative is pretty pathetic…
The first warning sign is that the City apparently views inspections and ratings as a “partnership” and “collaborative” effort with food service establishments. This should be about enforcement, not politically correct double-speak, or trying to keep restaurant owners happy…
The process needs to be more transparent, and the results clearly articulated for the public…
Being personally familiar with many of these places that the city has numerically rated in the “excellent” range, I have serious doubts about the veracity of the inspection process itself.
Mike is right on! I hope he runs for Mayor because he has the political COURAGE to move this city in the right direction.
Thank you for the kind words, Doug. I really appreciate it.
@Mike: Why shouldn’t the city consider restaurants to be their partners? Our restaurants contribute so much the economic and cultural vitality of our life. In addition to paying taxes, hiring our neighbors and kids and donating to so many great causes, they’re a big reason why people like living and visiting here.
I’ve sat in on several meetings between our Health Department inspectors and restaurant operators as they rolled out Newton’s grading program. The inspectors made it clear that their number one goal was to protect the public and, believe me, they’re tough when it comes to inspections.
But they also say that they’d rather create a safe dining experience through education and training of our restaurant owners and workers about how to run a safe operation, than by shutting them down. That’s what makes this a partnership and the prudent approach.
@Greg– Consumers have a right to know that restaurants are sanitary, and the food they serve is safe to eat. The government’s role is to provide assurance of those conditions through enforcement. It’s really pretty basic. There’s no “partnership” involved. The City’s job is to enforce the rules and inform the public of the results in a transparent way.
You mentioned that the Health Department is “tough when it comes to inspections.” Can you give me an example?
Of course. And they do. The health inspections are a public record. Resturants are requirted to display their inspection scores and the results are available online and at City Hall. At the same time the city provides training for restaurant workers (in different languages) with the goal of avoiding the kinds of violations that coild make people sick.
@Mike: I honestly can’t imagine why you object to that!
What Greg said.
The grading system is unnecessarily [deliberately?] complicated, and the website makes it difficult to distinguish between individual restaurants or discern what their violation[s] might have been. The top two ratings in this system are “Superior” and “Excellent,” with a swing of 40 points between them…
Consumers deserve a crystal clear grading system. This current grading system looks like it was designed by restaurant owners to cover-up the details of health code violations. I understand why those owners would be nervous about about a fully transparent grading system. Reputation is critically important in that industry. But the government has a responsibility, and consumers have a right to know.
The website could definitely be improved, though if you enlarge the map (ctrl-+) it’s much easier to find individual restaurants – just hover your cursor over the dot. And regardless for the labels for the grades, it’s easy between the labels and color coding to tell where along the scale a restaurant falls.
A lot of restaurants are currently missing, but that will be rectified as the next round of inspections goes forth. And the restaurant in my neighborhood with the lowest non-failing grade just went out of business (Yelp reviewers concurred with the inspectors).
I like the idea, but the website is kind of a disaster. It’s fine to have the map view as an option, so someone could see, for instance, all the West Newton restaurants at a glance, but there should also be a list by name available so you can easily look up a particular restaurant. And a link to the area where “results are available online” would be nice too, so we would know what caused lower ratings.
While I didn’t agree with Mike when he said the city shouldn’t consider its relationship with restaurants to be a partnership, I agree that the website could be a lot better. But that’s not just true for this specific program. The site overall would benefit from an upgrade.