The Sun-Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel are patting themselves on the backs, now that they've gotten the state's attention. We're not sure if this whole preoccupation with restaurant inspections began before or after the infamous survey deeming Florida's restaurants the least clean, but at any rate, state officials are listening. They're conducting an internal review to figure out how to make the inspection reports more clear and accessible to the public. State officials also plan to ask legislators for more money to hire extra restaurant inspectors.

"Our goal is to make our information more useful to everyone we serve," said Holly Benson, Secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which oversees the state's restaurant inspection operation.

She said her department would not call for a letter-grading system on eatery inspection reports, which is used by some other states ... Benson said the state is in the midst of overhauling its Web site so consumers can easily find a restaurant's latest inspection report and history.

Much of the rest of the article is spent discussing why the letter system isn't being considered — Benson says there are "fundamental limitations" to the system — and why it's good or bad, according to industry officials, restaurant owners, and former health inspectors. Are there no other ways of making inspection reports accessible to the public besides slapping grades in restaurant windows? We imagine that state officials revealed little about possible changes (they've just started their internal review, after all), but we also are thinking the Sentinel reporters pressed the grades issue a bit too hard. We already know that the paper is in favor of adopting the system.

But enough of the journalistic commentary. We're on the fence about the grades issue; it's definitely the easiest way for a customer to gauge a restaurant's cleanliness, but it can also be overly simplistic and really hurt a restaurant that just happened to be having a bad day. There have got to be other alternatives. Any suggestions?

Florida wants to improve access to restaurant inspections [Sun-Sentinel]
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