The City Council this week shed necessary light on Mayor Bloomberg’s two-year-old restaurant letter-grade regime — and found it wanting.
Boy, did it ever.
In a nutshell, the council found the system to be too arbitrary, with inspectors granted far too much discretion. Moreover, the Health Department — which runs the program — seems to be more interested in raising revenue through fines than it is in providing for the public health.
The ABC letter grades falsely imply simplicity and coherence — in fact, the grades derive from a bewilderingly complex, 1,300-point system that restaurants find nearly impossible to comprehend.
Thus, owners are forced to hire costly “expediters” and lawyers to deal with its Kafkaesque complexity.
In short, the system is a petri dish for corruption.
So no surprise that The Post’s David Seifman reported last weekend that the well-connected Midtown eatery Per Se put in a personal call to DOH and got a “B” changed to an “A” in just three days — warp speed for the Health Department.
Harry’s Hash House should be so lucky.
Normally, owners have to jump through hoops, including an onerous tribunal appeal process in which — even if the appeal is successful and violations are removed — owners still pay thousands in fines based on the original finding.
That’s why so many see the system as a revenue-raising scheme — a de facto tax on restaurants.
Fines have surged from $17.3 million in fiscal year 2006 to an estimated $50 million by the end of this fiscal year, June 30th.
Far easier — and cheaper — to bribe an inspector?
Well, the city Department of Investigation reports a surge in inspector-bribery cases since grading began two years ago.
Certainly the department has long been a magnet for inspector-related corruption. In the 1980s, a huge scandal saw nearly 50 inspectors — almost two-thirds of the entire unit — found guilty of extortion.
A half-dozen restaurant “consultants” — mostly former inspectors — were also implicated.
None of this matters to Mayor Bloomberg, of course.
“[Critics’] complaints are going to fall on deaf ears, I can tell you that. We’re not going to change,” he says.
Typical.
For the record: Excessive complexity and unfettered discretion, combined with an oppressively heavy fine schedule, breed contempt for government and are an invitation to corruption.
Worth thinking about, Mr. Mayor.
