health inspection levels critical

the arlington health district's website publishes the results of restaurant health inspections online. although my favorite thai restaurant did not get a clean bill of health, i ordered last night anyway, albeit with a twinge of guilt for not informing my dinning partner of this discovery.

a sampling of the more innocent "critical" violations:

• The "Kenmore" freezer, "Panasonic" microwave, and the "Osterizer" blenders are not designed and constructed to be durable.
• The food contact surface of the plastic food container lids with holes in the middle of them are not finished to have smooth welds and joints.
• The operator is not testing the chemical sanitizing solution to ensure proper concentration of the solution (The wiping cloth solution was found to be too strong).
• Inadequate light was noted in the "Perlick" freezer at the server station.
• There are cracked floor tiles in the kitchen. There are some cracks and crevices in the kitchen walls.

the purpose of inspections is to prevent sickness. the current methodology, inspecting and tracking each restaurant, is expensive for both taxpayers and patrons. many of the violations, if fixed, may never even prevent anyone from getting sick.

why not drop this entire procedure and set up a penalty system for restaurants that actually make people sick? this will eliminate the entire inspection, tracking, and enforcement process. an even cheaper solution would be to publish each proven incidence of food borne illness and let consumers choose for themselves where they want to go. these approaches would be cheaper and focus on results instead of sometimes-arbitrary standards.

arlingtonites: search for your favorite restaurant. you might be surprised that dr. dremo's is one of the cleanest!

update: i am, apparently, magical! cool.