Inspectors lag on restaurant inspections: Many area communities fail to meet state's timetable for inspections
Amherst a notable exception
Saturday, March 20, 20101
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Last in a series of three
In late 2007, an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness sickened two dozen people at a Southampton restaurant, prompted state intervention and may have contributed to an elderly woman's death.
Elsewhere, area diners have chewed on rodent limbs and old Band-Aids found in takeout food and salad bars in recent years, while one woman got hit with a $1,220 bill last fall after being hospitalized with food poisoning in Hadley. The alleged culprit?
A tainted hamburger.
These are among the complaints filed each year with local health inspectors, whose job it is to educate kitchen workers and prevent food-borne illness through preventive sanitary inspections at hundreds of food establishments in the Valley.
But a Gazette review of restaurant inspection files finds that many cities and towns are not keeping pace with the state's sanitary code, which requires local health departments to conduct inspections at six-month intervals, or twice yearly.
The lack of timely inspections in some communities doesn't mean restaurant owners are at fault, nor does it mean kitchens are unclean or that food-handling and storage techniques are poor. What it does mean is that some local health departments, for a variety of reasons, are not safeguarding the public's health to the extent the state mandates.
Restaurants are considered at high risk for food-borne illness, which is why the state requires twice-yearly inspections, said Suzanne K. Condon, associate commissioner of the state Department of Public Health.
"There are a significant number of communities that aren't doing the number of inspections they are supposed to be doing," Condon said. "We're trying to take a closer look at this."
Local health departments are required to file annual reports with the state Department of Public Health detailing their food inspection activities. During the past reporting cycle, 56 percent, or more than half of the local health authorities in the state, provided no data, marking one of the lowest response rates ever.
It's not clear whether any area communities are among that 56 percent.
Condon said state health officials are concerned about the decline in reporting at the local level, which could indicate a decline in restaurant inspections. The low level of reporting comes at a time when the state's capacity to provide aggressive oversight has diminished because of budget cuts.
In letters this month, Condon said the state has provided health departments with another 30 days to report on the status of their food inspection work before sending in a team it has assembled to review files.
"The first thing we need to do is get in there and figure out why they haven't reported," Condon said.
Meantime, the Gazette pulled inspection reports for restaurants in five communities: Amherst, Northampton, Easthampton, Hadley and Southampton. The review found that the frequency of restaurant inspections not only varies widely from one health department to the next, but so does the reporting involved with those monitoring commercial kitchens.
Northampton
· In Northampton, eight of 10 files reviewed found restaurants that hadn't been inspected for more than a year, despite assurances last fall from the health board that the department had caught up on a backlog of inspection work and was wrapping up one of its best years.
Of those eight restaurants, one hadn't been visited by inspectors in nearly two years, while several others hadn't been inspected for 15 months or more.
Benjamin Wood, who was named director of the Northampton health department four months ago, said the department was not staffed appropriately for much of last year, which helps explain the gap in restaurant inspections. He said the department is prioritizing its work and this month hired a new part-time inspector - a shared position with Amherst - whose primary job will be to conduct food service inspections.
One Florence restaurant that hadn't been inspected since June 2008 was on the department's priority list and scheduled for an inspection this month, according to Wood, who is the city's fourth health director in six years.
"There's been inconsistency the past 10 years or so," Wood said. "This certainly does not just extend to restaurants."
Northampton has 168 restaurants or bars that serve food and another 50 retail food establishments that require inspections, the most of any city or town in Hampshire County.
Wood said he is ranking the importance of inspections based on the populations the establishments serve and on whether previous inspections revealed critical violations. He has issued a recent letter to restaurant owners indicating the department's plans to conduct preventive and comprehensive inspections twice a year, as state rules require.
"It is my hope that inspections will be educational and nonpunitive events," he wrote.
Beginning this month, Amherst is sharing a part-time sanitary inspector with Northampton. The inspector, Javeria Mir, will spend 20 hours per week in each municipality conducting restaurant inspections. She is expected to play a leading role in helping Northampton reduce its backlog of inspections.
In addition to restaurants, local health officials are responsible for inspecting housing, swimming pools, day camps, and septic systems to ensure sanitary conditions, among other duties. Many provide vaccinations, including the recent swine flu vaccine, and respond to communicable disease outbreaks and other emergencies, including flooding and hoarding.
Southampton
· In Southampton, health officials cited staff inconsistencies and budget cuts a year and a half ago as the reason it fell behind on restaurant inspections. At the time, the department's records were in such disarray that health officials were having difficulty determining when the last time the town's restaurants were checked.
A review of restaurant files this month by the Gazette found that Southampton's restaurant inspection work picked up over the past year, after it hired part-time health agent Joshua Mathieu.
Records show most restaurants have been inspected at least once in the past year, though a few food service establishments do not appear to have been inspected since 2008. Mathieu said he's beginning a new round of inspection work this year, but is not able to hit establishments twice annually, given other demands on the health department - including increasing septic system inspection work - and his 30-hour-a-week status.
"It's really hard to get to them twice," Mathieu said. "I just wish there was more time to devote to it."
The importance of sanitary inspections was highlighted in late 2007 in Southampton when one restaurant was the site of a food-borne illness outbreak that state health officials linked to Salmonella Uganda, one of a group of bacteria transmitted to humans eating foods contaminated with animal feces.
More than 40 people attending a birthday party reported being sickened. Twenty-three people were confirmed to have suffered from food poisoning. One elderly woman died the next day after complaining of nausea and diarrhea, according to records on file.
Easthampton
· In Easthampton, restaurants are inspected once a year, a comprehensive review of health department files show, though a few have gone nearly a year since they were last inspected.
As in Southampton, the city's health agent, Dennis R. Lacourse, is the only municipal employee doing restaurant inspection work. He said he is preparing for a fresh round of random inspections this spring.
Lacourse said he would like to inspect restaurants as frequently as the state sanitary code requires, but does not have the time or resources to do so.
"You get behind; you do the best you can," said Lacourse, whose inspection reports are among the most detailed of those reviewed by the newspaper.
Lacourse said he is proud that no restaurant in Easthampton has been linked to a food-borne illness outbreak during his 10 years on the job. Inspection files show he has ordered the emergency and temporary shutdown of at least a few restaurants in recent years for repeated violations, including "filthy" conditions and malfunctioning kitchen equipment, poor food storage and sanitation practices, according to inspection files.
Amherst
· A review of 10 restaurant inspection files in Amherst found that every one of those restaurants had been inspected at least four times in the past year or so, a rate of inspections that exceeds the requirements mandated by the state Department of Public Health.
Amherst Health Director Julie Federman said the town has been able to maintain a high frequency of inspections with one full- and one part-time employee devoted to that work. She said the town's restaurants have a high turnover rate among staff, which is one reason the town visits establishments four times annually.
A few files reviewed by the newspaper found restaurants that had even been visited by inspectors five or six times in a year because they required follow-up visits.
Although Federman is re-evaluating the health department's operations, including inspection services, she said her staff remains on top of restaurant inspection work.
"When you're going in frequently, your inspections are a lot faster," Federman said. "When you're going in once a year, you're spending more time and finding a lot more violations."
Hadley
· In Hadley, a review of 10 restaurant files by the Gazette found that the town is consistently meeting the state sanitary code's requirements of inspecting the majority of restaurants in that town at six-month intervals. However, one restaurant was found not to have been inspected since August 2008 and appears to have fallen through the cracks, according to the health board.
No other restaurant had gone more than a year without being inspected.
Records show health officials receive occasional food poisoning complaints in Hadley, and like other departments in the area, have followed up quickly on those reports.
"There are some places that require a little more observation than others," said Gregory Mish, chairman of the Board of Health.
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.
