Ready access promotes squeaky-clean restaurants

As consumers are faced with more health scares concerning their food — recent large-scale recalls of ground beef, tomatoes and spinach linked with E. coli and salmonella contamination — the state is making it easier for local residents to make more informed health choices about their area eateries.

The Alaska Division of Environmental Health’s Food Safety and Sanitation Program has launched a new Web site (www.dec.state.ak.us/eh/fss/food_inspections) that shows the latest health inspections for many areas around the state, including the Mat-Su Valley. Although establishments are not graded on their inspections, the reports are eye-opening. Many show superlative health inspections, others less so.

For example, a quick search in Palmer turns up a June 9 inspection of a local restaurant where rodent droppings were found throughout the dry storage area and on shelves. Also, a refrigerator was found to be turned off with perishable food inside. A March 13 inspection of the bakery department of a Wasilla grocery store also turned up rodent droppings on an otherwise clean report.

The state makes a special effort to note that any inspection report is a “snapshot” of a business on a particular day and time of an inspection. On another day, it could have no violations or more. By posting an immediate history of reports (back to January 2007) for many establishments, we can get a better view of a restaurant’s overall history of cleanliness.

State food safety inspections are public documents and have been available from the state. But using the Internet and taking advantage of technology, we’re pleased to see these public records made more accessible to residents. What may have been a minor chore that could take considerable time takes just minutes online. Although inspection records prior to January 2007 aren’t online, this is a good start.

Keeping the public informed and responding to requests for public information is the duty of any government entity. It’s through efforts like this one from the state’s Food Safety and Sanitation Program that we see how agencies can follow the spirit of conducting the public’s business in the open.

Like the state’s online checkbook, we hope it becomes the standard for doing government business in Alaska.