New restaurant grade guidelines to ease penalties

The city on Friday released new guidelines for the restaurant letter-grade system that are expected to collectively save owners nearly 25 percent in penalty payments.

The rules, which lowered nearly all of the fines and spelled out exactly what type of violations would lead to them, were meant to provide clarity and consistency to an industry that said it was under siege by inspectors. The violations have been used since 2010 to assign letter grades notifying consumers about the health, safety and cleanliness of eateries.

“Letter grading was never intended to be a revenue-generator for the city of New York,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. “The rules will provide much-needed fine relief to the city’s restaurants and will show that we can treat restaurants fairly without compromising public safety.”

Fine revenue from restaurants jumped from $32.8 million in fiscal year 2010 to $52 million in 2012. The new guidelines are expected to reduce the total take to about $30 million next year, officials said.

The final regs are expected to go into effect in June.