Mayor Bloomberg touted his restaurant letter-grading system as one of the signature accomplishments of his administration — but stats show that since the law was introduced there has actually been an increase in food-poisoning complaints.
There have been 6 to 7 percent more food-poisoning complaints reported to 311 every year since the city started requiring restaurants to post letter grades in their windows in 2010 — compared to 2009, when there was no letter-grading system.
“All of the mayor’s claims of the benefits are extraordinarily flimsy,” a source said.
“It’s cherry-picking a bunch of silly statistics to show that this program is working.”
Twelve months following the implementation of the system in 2012, 2,256 people made calls to 311 complaining of food poisoning, compared with 12 months prior to the start of grade lettering, when 2,121 made calls.
Bloomberg boasted to New York magazine earlier this month, “The number of cases of salmonella in hospitals declined something like 14 percent,” but that number for 2010 to 2011 was preliminary. It actually declined by 12 percent during those years and then increased by 3 percent in 2012.
He claimed that his letter-grading was responsible for a larger decline in New York City compared to the surrounding areas. From 2010 to 2012, Connecticut and New York City had the same 10 percent decline in salmonella.
Daniel E. Ho, a Stanford law professor who has studied data from inspections, has argued that the current system is ineffective.
“Unsurprisingly, New York’s implementation of letter grading in 2010 has not discernibly reduced manifestations of food-borne illness. Perhaps worse, the system perversely shifts inspection resources away from higher health hazards to resolve grade disputes,” Ho wrote in the Yale Law Journal.
There will be a City Council hearing Monday on steps to reform the system.
The Mayor’s Office sees the uptick in food-poisoning calls as a result of more people calling 311 to complain.
“Salmonella cases — which are tracked by lab reports and physicians — declined by 14 percent in the year after restaurant grading, a steeper decline than the rest of New York state and the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut,” said mayoral spokesperson Samantha Levine.