Restaurant health inspection reports: Just a call, fax and week's wait away

02:09 PM CDT on Thursday, September 30, 2004

By Eileen Faxas / 11 News

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KHOU-TV Mayor White's spokesman said the city will reconsider its position -- if the public complains.

This week, 11 News Defenders revealed how City Hall quashed plans to publicize health inspections by putting them online.

The Health Department wanted to post them online, but the Houston Restaurant Association is against it.

Consumer Reporter Eileen Faxas paid a visit to the Association, and got some interesting answers.

When a question is posed to two people, it is conceivable that they could have similar answers. But what if the answers were nearly identical --from the city and an interest group?

The question is easy as pie, "Why aren't Houston's 50,000 yearly health inspections put online for everyone to see?"

When that question was asked of the Houston Restaurant Association, which represents nearly 900 restaurants, Director Juli Salvagio answered, "It's a snapshot in time of a restaurant."

That answer sounds similar to another response.

"If you put it online, what you're getting is a snapshot of a restaurant at a given time," says city spokesperson Pat Trahan.

That is coming from the city, sounding just like the Restaurant Association as to why health inspections don't belong online. The two even share the same vocabulary.

When the 11 News Defenders told City Hall of the Health Department's plans to go online with the reports, the mayor's office stopped it.

What does the Restaurant Association have to say?

"To me, it's a waste of time and energy," says Salvagio.

Last year Salvagio successfully campaigned to pull the Health Department's online inspection reports. They had been online for just one week at the time.

Could some people have the impression that the HRA was using the size and the clout of its organization to keep public information difficult for the public to get?

"Oh, I don't think that's the case at all. We don't want to create a problem that doesn't exist," Salvagio says.

Problems that include food borne illness or contamination, that Salvagio says aren't problems in this situation.

"We have a great, great dining out city," she says.

When asked why not let people judge for themselves, she replies, "Well they can judge for themselves ... um ... everyday they go to restaurants."

But health inspectors will tell you that the worst violations are the ones the public can't see.

When asked if these were public records that the public should be able to see, Salvagio agreed that they were public, and said she felt like the public already had access to them.

The city couldn't agree more.

"Call the health department and you can get the information you need," says Trahan.

The reality is that if you want to see an actual health inspection, you have to fax a request to the Health Department, wait about a week, go pick it up and pay 12.5 cents a page.

The mayor's spokesman did say the city will reconsider its position -- if the public complains.

So here's the mayor's number: 713-247-2200.