Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Pols want to monitor restaurant inspectors

From the Times Ledger:

Queens lawmakers and small business owners gathered Tuesday at Flushing Town Hall to introduce a new bill aimed at protecting restaurants from unfair inspection practices.

State Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing), state Sen. Jose Peralta (D- East Elmhurst), Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Howard Beach) and Assemblyman Clyde Vanel (D- Queens Village) said the bill would help lessen the amount of burdensome fines levied on small businesses that can not handle them.

The bill is intended to reform the New York restaurant health investigation system, according to Kim. As a teenager Kim saw his parent’s grocery store go bankrupt and close after suffering from what he termed overregulation, excessive fining and high rents.

According to Kim, the bill, titled “The Restaurant Owner Whistle Blower Protection Act” will establish an independent oversight body to receive complaints about health inspectors. Complaint intake will create a hotline and website in multiple languages, including Arabic, Bengali, and Chinese. Kim said the if the bill passes, the city must provide an annual summary report on total number of independent complaints, what type of complaints and investigative findings. Finally, restaurants owners will be given three opportunities to deny the inspections on sitet and request a new inspector. Every time the restaurant owner will pay a fee, $75 for the first denial, $150 for the second denial and $250 for the final denial.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a character. Protecting "his people" while risking the health of the general public. He's got some nerve! Why can't Asians just follow the law?

Anonymous said...

"Kim saw his parent’s grocery store go bankrupt and close after suffering from what he termed overregulation, excessive fining"... So Kim must be a Trump supporter?

(sarc) said...

This will create another money sucking government bureaucracy to shuffle more papers with no benefit to anyone but the new employees who will be paid for showing up.

It will perhaps take a few dozen homeless off the streets.

Understand that every home kitchen would fail a city health inspectors review.

And yet we survive each and everyday when we eat at home.

On the rare occasion that I have contracted a food born illness, it was from an "A" rated restaurant.

Be wary when the government proposes a remedy for a problem that it originally created...

Anonymous said...

Just what we need, another layer of government! You can tell if an inspector is biased, do random repeat inspections or set up anonymous sites you send an inspector to that are already graded to see how they score.

Anonymous said...

Great... A bill to intimidate restaurants inspectors

Anonymous said...

These politicians pass these ridiculous laws and approve these high fines and then get annoyed when they are enforced. Then they want to pass another bill limiting the laws they originally passed. Utter retardation.

Anonymous said...

All so these asians and Indiand can run their filthy restaurants without being bothered. Fix your shit up and stop making it so filthy and dirty and then maybe you won't be fined so much. I have seen those dirty restaurants in flushing and hillside avenue and I wouldn't eat in any of them even if you paid me.

Liman said...

So, what's the going rate for an "A" card?

Anonymous said...

Health ratings protect customers.
If Kim has a problem, let him leave office.
He is just your typical Democratic clubhouse stooge.
Another Asian mainly concerned with his own group just like Grace Meng.
Uh.....you are supposed to be representing all ethnicities without showing any favoritism.
Yeah! Right!

Anonymous said...

Hell no! The health grades are excellent and should be expanded to groceries and 7-11 andd newstands