During the many discussions of the proven dangers of ETS, health codes have been brought up as a thing the government does to protect us that every reasonable person would have to admit is a good thing - that we should be thankful that the government cares about us so much as to set standards for how restaurants prepare food and clean.
Some may have heard about the KFC in New York with the 1- 1.5 lb rats running around. Gues what? The day before a CBS news crew took the video, the KFC passed its inspection by the government.
From WCBSTV.com :
"It doesn't look like the inspection that was done Thursday met our standards," said Geoffrey Cowley, a health department spokesman. "I don't want to prejudge that. We're concerned and we're going to carefully revaluate that inspection."
The restaurant located at Sixth Avenue and West 4th Street was investigated Thursday following complaints, but the inspector didn't see any rats.
The inspector didn't see any rats... probably because he went to the KFC in the afternoon. The CBS news crew was smarter - they knew that rats usually come out to play when it's still dark, so their camera caught the rat party in the early morning hours by simply looking through the KFC window.
My opinion is that these government "inspections" can make us less safe. We rely on the government to protect us and fail to use our own judgment to decide if a place is safe to eat at.
What do you think would happen if restaurants could not hang up their certificate of passing a health-code inspection? If restaurants had to make the case directly to the customer that it is safe to eat there?
The government, and proponents of government, can point to cases where a restaurant was shut down as clear examples of the benefits of health-code inspections. However, the negative consequences of these laws are harder to see. They are much more broad and subtle.
Hopefully this case will at least prompt more people to be on the lookout for rats, even though a place has a "No rats" seal of approval from the government.
I just hope this doesn't lead to a backlash against the rats.
Maybe this will raise some questions about the CUPHD operates and how well local restaurants score on health code inspections. All homeowners pay a tax to the CUPHD, so it only makes sense that we should be able to look up a restaurant and see how they have scored over time. If you visit the website, you cannot find this information. As a taxpayer, I'd like to understand the process and see the scores. If someone is shut down by the health department, I'd like to know why. There is a big difference between the water heater breaking and giant rats running around - both grounds for being shut down.