Like most people, Chad Obenauf doesn’t like to eat dirty food.
“I stay away from places that are bad, or the ones that I hear are bad from word of mouth,” the history senior said. “A bad (inspection result) would definitely keep me away from going to a place.”
Ingham County has paid attention to picky eaters like Obenauf and made it even easier for people to decide which restaurants to frequent.
The county Environmental Health Department recently began posting restaurant inspection results on a Web site, expected to be updated weekly.
“I’m not a very good person for sharing data and I think it’s important for me to learn to share data,” Director of the department F. Robert Godbold said. “The Internet is a good way to get the information out.”
The Web site is part of a partnership of about 10 counties, all working to make the inspection data more accessible to the public. Previously, access to inspection results required filing a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Web site lists violations alphabetically by restaurant and offers information on each violation.
“That way people can see what it’s really talking about,” food safety manager Terry Anderson said. “To see for themselves if it’s really a problem or if it’s something like ‘eh, I can live with it.’”
Anderson said some of the violations designated critical aren’t that critical and shouldn’t be viewed as business-threatening, but a health code revision in the last year tightened inspections.
“The code is quite comprehensive,” he said. “A lot of things are called in there because it’s the code and some people might take odds with it, but it’s really not huge.”
Kent County, which launched a similar site in September 2000, drew some concerns from those in the community.
The site accumulated 70,000 hits in three days.
Mike Mullet, community relations coordinator for the Kent County Health Department, said some in the food service industry had concerns.
“All of a sudden it’s there in the public and they don’t have to FOIA the records and they don’t even have to go to the department office,” he said. “And they think, ‘If I have some violations everyone’s going to see it.’”
But many Ingham County restaurant owners didn’t know the site existed.
And even those who were aware didn’t seem concerned.
“It can’t hurt,” said Scott Marcou, manager of The Riviera Cafe Restaurant & Lounge, 231 M.A.C. Ave said. “The most critical places are the ones people talk about the most.”
Public relations junior Nicole Mihailovich said she’ll check the Web site, but has no intention of changing her eating habits in response.
“I think it’s a good idea to have them online, but it wouldn’t stop me from going to a place where I’m a regular customer,” she said.
Inspection results can be found online at A href=\"http://www.cacvoices.org\"target=\"_blank\">www.cacvoices.org.
Staff writer Mark Hicks contributed to this report.
