Staying Ahead of Health Regs Is Daunting for Restaurateurs One night in July, Muhammed Rahman, his wife and family scrubbed their Van Nuys restaurant until 3 o’clock in the morning. When they had finished, Passage to India, the restaurant Rahman has owned for more than 15 years, sparkled. But the damage was already done. Authorities had closed Passage to India earlier that day because a health department inspector found mouse droppings in the kitchen. The A rating that usually greets diners came off the door and, though the restaurant was able to reopen after the all-night cleanup, even regulars stopped coming. “You know the Indian restaurant,” said Rahman. “If there is no ‘A,’ nobody is coming here. In the last three months, I’m losing business.” Three years after a local television news crew went behind the kitchen doors of L.A. restaurants and showed, in graphic detail, a bellyful of food-handling nightmares, there are more inspectors, more A-rated restaurants and fewer closures than ever. But the business falloff that can result, even with a drop to a B rating, has never been more costly, to say nothing of what happens if a restaurant is temporarily closed down. You might say that for many diners, even a good-but-not-great score leaves a bitter taste. “I try to stay with the A’s,” said Frank McKenna, a Warner Center office worker who was lunching at a local strip mall one recent afternoon. “I’ll occasionally do a B if I’ve eaten there before. But I wouldn’t eat below a B.” So powerful has the restaurant grading system become that most restaurant owners refuse to talk about their experiences on the record for fear of retaliation by the inspectors on whom, they say, their livelihood rests. But privately they claim that a restaurant’s sales can drop as much as 40 percent, even with a ratings slide from A to B. And it can take months to lure customers back. “People would walk up, see the B and walk across the street,” said one San Fernando Valley restaurateur, whose rating dropped after an inspection recently. L.A. County instituted the report card system in 1998 after an undercover sting caught even the swankiest restaurants operating with appalling disregard for safety and hygiene. The report led to the hiring of 74 additional county environmental health inspectors and supervisors, increasing the frequency of unannounced visits and boosting the visibility of the process. Restaurants were required to post their grades and closures are disclosed to the public in entranceways, in newspapers and on the Department of Health Services Web site. The system works this way: Surprise inspections are held and point values are assigned to each infraction, leading to an overall grade. Some infractions, however, like the presence of rodents or cockroaches, lack of hot water or problems with the sewage disposal system will get a restaurant closed immediately, with the reason posted in no uncertain terms on the door. Score averages have gone up consistently since the program was instituted, increasing to 91.4 percent in the most recent year from 91.1 percent in the prior period. The percentage of restaurants receiving A ratings has climbed to 79.4 percent from 76.8 percent last year. And the percentage of eateries receiving B and C ratings has consistently declined. All this leads Department of Health Services officials to believe the program is working. “What grading gives us is a proactive incentive for the operator to do better,” said Terrance Powell, chief environmental health specialist for the consultation and technical services unit of the Los Angeles County Environmental Health Department. That is little consolation to those who believe they are already well motivated, but wind up on the wrong side of the system anyway, as happened to Rashan. A straight A operator, Rashan’s Passage to India was one of 185 restaurants, 25 in the San Fernando Valley, shut down countywide between July 1 and Aug. 18. He believes the four-legged intruder entered from a neighboring store, although he concedes that the blame lies with him, not the process. “This is a problem of me, not the health department,” he says. “I am the enemy of mice and cockroaches, but I didn’t see the droppings. I guess I was busy.” Still, the two-day closure cost about $1,600 in lost sales and, while some customers laughed off the incident, he is certain others have still not returned. “Our customers are all regulars, but if they see the B and C they’re all irregular,” he said. Another restaurant manager said a recent Health Department closure cost him about $2,000 a day. “Sixty-seven percent of our customers eat here twice a week,” said the manager who did not want his or the restaurant’s name used. “They noticed because it was on a Friday, and this was our busiest day.” Customers were given a 50 percent-off coupon for their next visit. Restaurateurs point out that some owners do not have the cash flow to withstand a two-day sales loss (the time it usually takes for the problem to be corrected and the inspector to return and reopen the premises). And more costs pile on, even after the restaurant is reopened. The owner of an Italian restaurant in the Northeast Valley said business fell off 30 percent to 40 percent when his rating went from A to B, costing him about $15,000. “I haven’t been able to take any money out of here since it started,” he said. “I had to take $5,700 from my own pocket.” Six weeks after the inspection, business is still off about 20 percent, and the restaurant owner has begun an ad campaign that offers 50 percent off on the second meal. The cost: another $1,400. “It’ll be something between $25,000 and $30,000 before it comes back,” he said. One problem, say many owners, is that a single cockroach egg delivered with a food shipment from suppliers may yield an army of insects, and regular exterminator visits won’t necessarily protect against violations if the inspector happens to arrive the next day. “When we found a dead one, we sprayed,” said Joe Lei, the owner of Fresh Donuts in Granada Hills. “They found four more, so they closed us because of that.” But the Department of Health Services figures that what they see is what the diner gets. “Our assumption is how we see you when we walk in unannounced is basically how you operate,” said Powell. He adds that the follow-up process, and an appeals process, is designed to assure corrections are made and the restaurant is treated fairly. By the same token, say some restaurant owners, many of the infractions that can quickly add up to a B rating have little to do with the food or food preparation. And a few customers agree. “I pay a little attention, but not really,” said Jason Maier one afternoon while he waited for his Thai food order. “I just make sure it’s not an F. I think sometimes when you’re talking about other cultures, they have different ways of doing things. In the end, it might be a C restaurant, but it tastes better than an A restaurant. All I care about is the food.”