Page 98 - Cityview_May_June_2014

great expectations, Doubtful results

Chattanooga—but restaurant owners from July 2012 to June 2013 was 88.2,
agree that a poor score can be just as meaning about half of Tennesseans

misleading. “Reputation is something profess they would not eat at the aver-
that takes many years of effort to age restaurant in Knoxville.

build,” says David Kiger, owner of The “Everyone gets tied up in the score,”
orangery and president of the Knox- says Ronnie Nease, director of Envi-

ville Restaurant Association (KRA). ronmental health for the Knox County
“Yet a television show or newspaper health Department. Nease manages all

can trumpet one questionable score of the county’s food-safety inspections.
and destroy a business and all the work “But a good facility can lose points

that went into it.”
for having a door propped open or an
often, news media portray a negative unlabeled bottle,” says Nease. “The

score as more important than it is in or- regulations don’t state a score as fail-
der to hype their reporting. Especially if ing, and we don’t declare [a restaurant]

the restaurant has the otherwise sterling as failing.” Nease says that, although
reputation Kiger describes, the score inspectors use a state-mandated 44-

gives the story a “man bites dog” qual- item checklist covering everything
ity. The fact is that health department from the presence of hot water to the

reports are public documents: Any-
absence of turtles, during his tenure all
one can browse through them, select food illnesses have been either because

the extreme low and high scores, and of problems with personal hygiene or
regurgitate this information on air or in food temperature.

print as though such pedestrian cover- The terse language of the inspection
age represents investigative journalism form can also lead to ambiguity, and

on behalf of the news outlet’s audience. representatives from the KRA ques-
What might better serve the public in- tion whether all inspectors interpret

terest would be to educate viewers and standards identically and apply them
readers about the inspection process consistently. Timothy Joseph, owner

and what scores actually measure.
of WokChow fire Seared Asian, has
collected data from last year’s inspec-

Results and Reputations
tions that he says shows evidence some
As evidence of the poor job local me- inspectors are harsher than others:

dia does, most Tennesseans have “un- “Three inspectors review 32 percent of
realistically high expectations of the Knox County eateries, but those three

restaurant-inspection system,” accord- inspectors account for 76 percent of the
ing to a Vanderbilt university study failing scores.”

published in 2008 by the American “Restaurants are small businesses
Journal of Preventive Medicine. More and employers,” adds Kiger. “Nega-

than half of Tennesseans surveyed tive publicity affects their sales, which
believed restaurants were inspected at in turn affect income of employees,

least five times per year (reality: only business spending, and local and state
twice). Additionally, almost half of tax revenue. Yet there is little over-

those surveyed said they would decline sight as to what inspectors should be
to eat at a restaurant that received a doing, when and where they should

score of less than 90, whereas the aver- inspect, and so on. Their schedule is
age score for a Tennessee inspection is determined by themselves, and they

82. only one third of restaurants score each keep their own notes on who and
above 90. According to KRA data, the where to inspect in a private notepad

average inspection score in Knoxville
with pencil.”

96 cityviewmag.com may june 2014