Top 5: Critical food safety violations in Washtenaw County restaurants
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Not keeping food hot or cold enough is the No. 1 critical violation Washtenaw County restaurants are cited for, according to Kristen Schweighoefer of the Washtenaw County Environmental Health Division.
The county inspects restaurants every six months make sure they're serving food safely and are following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Food Code.
In that code, a "critical item" is one that, if not adhered to, "will more likely than other violations contribute to food contamination, illness, or environmental health hazard," said Schweighoefer, an environmental health supervisor with the county.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates foodborne illness results in 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths each year in the United States alone. These illnesses and deaths result in an annual cost of $22 billion due to medical expenses and loss of productivity.
Restaurants typically have two routine inspections per year, usually about six months apart, Schweighoefer said. If a critical violation is found, it is either permanently or temporarily corrected on site before the inspector leaves, she said.
"For example, if the foods are not marked with a date, sanitarians educate the restaurant staff on the type of foods that require date marking, how to date mark foods, why they need to be date marked, and a process to ensure date marking occurs on a routine basis," she said. "The foods are then marked with a date at the time of inspection, correcting the violation."
If a critical violation isn't corrected on the spot, restaurants have 10 days to resolve it.
Below is a list of the top 5 critical violations cited most frequently in Washtenaw County, based on data from October 2008 through October 2009.
1. Not keeping required foods hot or cold enough - 495 citations.
2. Dirty equipment or utensils that have come into contact with food - 338 citations.
3. Foods that need to stay refrigerated or are not cooked before serving aren't marked with a discard date - 217 citations.
4. Poisonous or toxic materials found stored in a manner that may contaminate food, equipment, or utensils - 168 citations.
5. The method of dishwashing being used is not properly sanitizing dishes and utensils - 124 citations.
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Interesting, but how about (like the old AA News) telling us the names of some of these restaurants?
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Oops sorry missed it
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Interesting story but it would be helpful to know the names of the BAD places. I clicked on the County Site and found one restaurant on the Westside (who shall remain nameless) on Maple Road had fruit flied in their liquor bottles and cockroaches in their kitchen. Yum...Maybe annarbor.com can focus on the reports for places that might be endangering our health.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
I agree, don't tell me that countless restaurants are unsafe or unsanitary and then don't list the names of these places. I would rather eat at eateries that weren't committing so many violations and would rather read an article that had some more details/investigation...
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Posted Nov 23 2009
It's there under "more information". It'll link you to where you can find specific reports for specific restaurants.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
True--there is more information on the link but there are hundreds and hundreds of routine reports. It would be nice to read a story about "Ann Arbor's Top Ten Worse Restaurants" with bullet points about insects, untrained staff, rodents, etc. Great dinner time reading!
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Pretty much useless if it doesn't actually LIST the restaurants. I looked under "more information" and it only listed two pizza places (no names) in 2006. The readers shouldn't have to SEARCH different areas to find the culprits .... just list them in the article in the first place ....... PLEASE!
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Posted Nov 23 2009
22 billion a year???? That could be used to educate our children or help out in breast cancer care
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Posted Nov 23 2009
As a former cook, busboy, and food prep for independent and chain restaurants, I can tell you that the majority of restaurants anywhere have at least one of the violations listed.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
If you click on the link and keep clicking on a strangely large number of pages, you get to a search page. This is on the County website. Click the drop-down arrow and select MI-Washtenaw. Don't select any of the other options. You get a complete list for Washtenaw County that goes back at least as far as 2005. There are only a couple of restaurants per page, so you have to click on each letter to see all the restaurants. As databases go, this one is not user friendly.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
The health inspection reports are public record but there should be a link to this story. Here's the link for Washtenaw County's Health Department restaurant inspection reports. They are listed alphabetically. It may surprise you what you find out.
http://www.swordsolutions.com/inspections/pgeSearchResults.asp?Name=&Address=&County=28&State=&Letter=0&Hit=DirectSearch&CountHit=No&Partial=false
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Yes, the info is there on the county site, but I agree it's not a user-friendly database. Basically I'm enjoying annarbor.com and feel that it is fulfilling its core function of getting local news out there and providing a forum for debate of local issues. But the restaurant reports are one thing I do miss. Shouldn't be beyond the capabilities of a programmer to come up with a way to download that info from the county automatically and present it here. It is, after all, public info.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Bummer...one of my favorite restaurants had the most icky violations...won't go there until they get a new inspection.
What is wrong with people?! Cockroaches...rotting food...in a high end restaurant...really?! But I do have to sing the praises of one of my other favorite restaurants that I eat at monthly and that is the Common Grill in Chelsea. Their inspection history was fantastic. Glad to continue to give them my business.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Laurie, you mean the Quarter Bistro?
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Posted Nov 23 2009
We can use the link to find out which restaurants have scored badly, but how about a feature story on the Top 10 restaurants, with the fewest violations? Let's reward the good guys with a little well-deserved attention.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Just to respond to a number of the comments, we are working on bringing back the restaurant inspection reports feature. We are working with the county to automate getting the reports when the database is updated.
AnnArbor.com Staff
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Thanks for the update, Suzy from AnnArbor.com!
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Posted Nov 23 2009
I lived in Los Angeles for a number of years and the health department there gives restaurants a letter grade after each inspection with A being the best and C being the worst - D or lower and the place is shut down. The restaurant is then required by law to post the letter grade in a viewable spot near the entrance - most places posted them on the doors - and it was the best system I have seen. That way, you know when your eating at a place that got a great pass or a just barely pass, without having to click 7 different things on a news or state/county website to get your information. I'll admit that I don't dine out nearly as much in Michigan as I did in Los Angeles primarily because I don't know how clean a place it is.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
A few years ago we often ate at a certain downtown Ann Arbor restaurant. When we saw a very bad cleanliness review in the Ann Arbor News we could no longer enjoy eating at that restaurant and we haven't gone back there since. This wasn't a case of easily corrected problems. This was systemic and it also focused our attention on a couple of things we had noticed, but had chosen to disregard. There's a difference between a kitchen mistake on the day of the inspection and a lack of concern by staff, management, and owner.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
The layout of the county site is pretty bad. Here's a link directly to the reports: http://www.swordsolutions.com/inspections/pgeSearchRest.asp
Select the county and leave the other fields blank to get a full list.
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Posted Nov 23 2009
Thanks to other readers who posted links to the reports, but AnnArbor.com should really have made this article comprehensive by actually naming the worst violators. Isn't that what reporting is all about?
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Posted Nov 24 2009