Board mandates health grades at entrances to restaurants

The Flathead City-County Board of Health voted Thursday to mandate placement of health-inspection grades near the main entrance of restaurants where the public can see them.

The vote clarified the policy outlining letter grades adopted in April 2010.

During her Environmental Health Services report, Wendee Jacobs was asked about compliance with posting letter grades.

“Most of them are hanging them up,” Jacobs said.

She said restaurants and other food preparation facilities receive a critical violation if inspectors don’t find the grade displayed. The idea was to provide an incentive to keep sanitary standards consistently high.

Grades assigned during unannounced inspections are:

A: very good to acceptable sanitation.

B: acceptable to marginal sanitation.

C: poor to marginal sanitation.

D and under: considerable risk to the public with immediate steps required to avoid closure proceedings.

In the summary of low grades of C+ or lower for February, Majestic Valley Arena food service received a C+ and  Montana Club in Kalispell received a C.

Montana Club raised its score to an A- in a follow-up visit a little more than a week later while Majestic Valley Arena had no follow-up visit score listed in the monthly report.

Jacobs said that any restaurant may just be having a bad day when the unannounced inspection takes place. The department has a procedure to clamp down with a plan of compliance on restaurants that consistently score poorly on announced visits.

Restaurants on compliance plans include the Rising Sun Bistro in Whitefish, the Knead Cafe and Marina Cay restaurant. Rising Sun Bistro received an A- on its March 2 inspection.

The Knead Cafe has closed, and the Marina Cay restaurant has closed for the season.

Also at the meeting, the board voted to increase some fees and add other fees at the Flathead Animal Shelter. The proposal now moves to the county commissioners for a final vote.

The new policy would increase the adoption fee to $95 for dogs under 30 pounds and adds a special breed request fee of $15. The new policy would change wording: The owner surrender fee of $20 would be called an animal surrender fee.

Shelter Director Cliff Bennett said the shelter has no problem adopting out small dogs. He also said other shelters have successfully charged a fee for the time keeping track of requests for special breeds.

Bennett said that the shelter requested the change from owner surrender fee to animal surrender fee because many owners were claiming animals as stray that obviously were not.

The director said the shelter also is working to increase collection of dog license fees. Bennett has a goal of selling 5,000.

“I think we sold about 2,000” last year, he said.

The board viewed a humorous public service announcement adapted from one used in Anchorage, Alaska, to inform the public about the legal requirement to purchase dog licenses. Bennett has spoken to local stations about airing the announcement.

Under county ordinances, dogs more than 4 months old belonging to a person here more than 30 days must have a license. Service dogs for the blind and deaf or dogs in government service such as police work are excluded.

The fee is $15 for neutered or spayed dogs or $30 for others. People may buy licenses through the Flathead County Animal Shelter website, flathead.mt.gov/animal.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.