Every state has its own method of inspecting restaurants and scoring the results.

Some, like my old state of Nebraska, have restaurant inspectors located in the Department of Agriculture.

I was Nebraska’s chief medical officer and a cabinet member of the Health and Human Services System, but had nothing to do with restaurant inspection. I could not find out how my favorite restaurant scored because Ag did not feel it necessary to make results public.

Some states, like Alabama, go so far as to post the results on the front door of the establishment and leave the findings there until the next round of inspections.

Tough luck if you got an "F."

In Larimer County, Colorado, where I now live the inspections are done by the County Health Department. The results get listed in the Fort Collins Coloradoan, our daily newspaper. The scores are: excellent, good, average, marginal and inadequate.

Does having your score get published have any effect on your clientele? I can’t speak for my neighbors, but I stay away from restaurants that have ever received a score of “inadequate” or even “marginal.”

Why am I even writing about this? Because the Colorado House of Representatives is considering doing away with public scoring of inspections.

A bill has been introduced that would increase the fees charged for inspections, thus allowing counties to employ more inspectors, something that is sorely needed out here.

But to get the Colorado Restaurant Association to agree to the extra cost and more frequent inspections, the bill’s sponsors had to agree to add language that would forbid any type of scoring, be it a letter grade, a number or a descriptor like Larimer County has chosen to use. Restaurants would either pass inspection, or fail and be shuttered until remedies were in place.

I remember pass/fail from my college days.

We were allowed to take one course each semester on the pass/fail system while all others were given letter grades. I always signed up for Pass/Fail for those courses I had to take, but had little interest in, like German, Religion and Sociology. My GPA did not get hurt, and I got the required courses out of the way with a minimum of effort.

If our restaurants go to a pass/fail scoring system, I am guessing there will be many who do just the minimum to get by and pass, which would cover current grading from excellent to marginal and no one will be the wiser.

At least not until 2-3 days later, that is…

Pass/fail is not a better system for rating restaurants

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