Restaurant inspection reports up on philly mag

[mrbigjas]

Mike, I can't locate the inspection report from your link. I get to the Philly Mag home page, where to go from here?? Do I need to be a subscriber?

it isn't up there anymore.

[philadining]

Mike, I can't locate the inspection report from your link. I get to the Philly Mag home page, where to go from here?? Do I need to be a subscriber?

it isn't up there anymore.

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interesting....

[Vadouvan]

Of course the report is gone......

Did I nail it or what ?

I figure a lot of pissed off advertisers oof Philly mag including Starr wouldnt be too happy about seeing their restaurants trashed...

How funny....

Edited May 11, 2006 by Vadouvan (log)

[I_call_the_duck]

Here is the magazine's "explanation":

EDITOR'S NOTE

In connection with Philadelphia magazine’s May 2006 article “Dirty Secrets: How to Get Your Mitts on the City’s Restaurant Reports,” this website featured a complete report that was provided to the magazine by Philadelphia’s Office of Food Protection in response to our request for health code violations recorded by their inspectors in 2005 and in the beginning of 2006. After providing that report and after its publication on this website, the Office of Food Protection has informed the magazine that the report contained numerous errors, including reports of health code violations at restaurants that in fact had no such violations. The magazine has removed the report from the website and will endeavor to provide a corrected report when it is provided by the city.

Yeah, Vadouvan. You nailed it alright.

Edited May 11, 2006 by I_call_the_duck (log)

[Vadouvan]

I call the duck...

Let me get this right ?

They claim that the health department gave them a fictitious report

A "detailed fictitious report" which somebody went to great lenghts to make up.

Why ?

makes no sense ?

Such detailed reports require someone who deliberately doesnt want to do thier job by making up fake reports, thats pretty scary in the health department.

If you believe that excuse you posted, then I have to tell you about a bullet that passed through a tree, made a left turn, passed through Governor John Connelly, made a 180 degree turn and ended up in JFK's head and subsequently disappeared.

Also logic dictates that the source discovery of inacccuracy would be the "alleged" offending restaurant so phone calls were obviously made by someone.

Edited May 11, 2006 by Vadouvan (log)

[I_call_the_duck]

No, I never said that I believed what the editors wrote, I was merely agreeing with what you predicted about the editors caving to the advertisers and the almighty Starr. I just posted what was formerly in place of the link. Don't shoot the messenger.

Edited May 11, 2006 by I_call_the_duck (log)

[serpentine]

Yeah, yeah, I get why the recommendation for warmer water exists. However, I also know that 15 seconds of vigorous friction works whether the water is hot, cold, or tepid. I didn't have any issue with the "employees not washing their hands properly/often enough" violation. I'm just saying...water not hot enough (or water too cold, for those establishments cited for not having cold water!) is not in the same league as mice crap found in the rice or a swarm of roaches.

But I digress...

[Holly Moore]

I don't doubt Philadelphia Magazine. Nor do I doubt that there are errors in a city report - especially one based on a large amount of data entry.

One other possibility, perhaps, is that once violations have been corrected and approved by the Health Department, the City is no longer permitted to publish that violation.

Anyway it doesn't make sense to me that the editors of Philadelphia Magazine would publish a blatant mistruth - especially one about a statement by a city agency.

I also don't believe that Philadelphia Magazine is all that concerned about pissing off small restaurant advertisers or even the Starr organization. They need Philadelphia Magazine as much as Philadelphia Magazine needs them Canceling an ad that brings in business to the restaurant because of a link in a web site that not all that many people will see goes well beyond shooting one's self in the foot.

[KatieLoeb]

The buried link on the website isn't terribly daring. And the information is part of the public record. Not a part of the public record that much of the public avails themselves of, but for a small fee, any citizen can go to the Dept. of Health office off 38th Street behind the Quad at Penn and get the inspection reports for any restaurant they desire. I have.

I'd like to see Philly Mag print the reports or do a whole story about it and highlight the link there.

Now THAT would be daring and playing Russian Roulette with the advertisers.

[VictorFiorillo]

The Philadelphia magazine website has been updated. http://www.phillymag.com

And to be clear, this web extra relates to an item I wrote in the current issue of the magazine about the difficulty in obtaining supposedly public information, in this case, health reports. Today, the city decided to make the health reports very public, by posting them on the phila.gov website. (Too bad they didn't do that months ago when I started looking into the matter) But the report that we have posted is easier to use, since the city published a series of pdfs and we have updated our site with the actual excel file the city sent us. so you can take this and sort it by zip code, violation, alphabetically, whatever you want.

[philadining]

Cool, thanks Victor!

[shacke]

Just got back from LA and it reminds how wonderful a system they have where every establishment has a letter grade posted outside the front window (A,B,C,etc) regarding there inspection history. These grades really affect business if they screw up. Would love to see something similar here.

Edited May 20, 2006 by shacke (log)

[Holly Moore]

Hi Victor,

Can you provide any details as to the reason for the first posted report being in error?

[Sfuffy]

Well, today's Inky seems to indicate that when the City converted its data to an Excel spreadsheet it failed to properly line up the rows for each establishment thereby mixing things up.

[VictorFiorillo]

Holly, thanks for the question. I agree with Sfuffy's assessment.

[VictorFiorillo]

Sorry for the multiple, consecutive posts.

I also wanted to add that we pulled the original report from our website as soon as we realized there was a problem - the week before Starr contacted us.

[serpentine]

Is the report moved or removed again? Can't find the link on the PhillyMag site.

[Vadouvan]

Look on the Action News site.

6abc.com

[philadining]

It's interesting, I didn't keep a copy of the earlier report, but just from eyeballing it, this updated one is MUCH different. And if indeed the earlier problem was that spreadsheet rows were getting out of line, that's a big thing, and might indeed have been painting a completely incorrect picture of who was being cited for which violations.

For instance, the rather damning long lists of violations at Striped Bass and Morimoto do NOT appear on the corrected list, nothing for Morimoto, just the no hot water at some sinks thing for Striped Bass.

Many of the reports are from 2004, and it's not noted whether the problem was fixed. Are we to presume that if they aren't cited yet again for it, that a place addressed the problem? There are a few reports of the same problem over and over, so I guess they go back to re-inspect when there's a critical violation?

[shacke]

It's interesting, I didn't keep a copy of the earlier report, but just from eyeballing it,  this updated one is MUCH different. And if indeed the earlier problem was that spreadsheet rows were getting out of line, that's a big thing, and might indeed have been painting a completely incorrect picture of who was being cited for which violations.

For instance, the rather damning long lists of violations at Striped Bass and Morimoto do NOT appear on the corrected list, nothing for Morimoto, just the no hot water at some sinks thing for Striped Bass.

Many of the reports are from 2004, and it's not noted whether the problem was fixed. Are we to presume that if they aren't cited yet again for it, that a place addressed the problem?  There are a few reports of the same problem over and over, so I guess they go back to re-inspect when there's a critical violation?

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Too bad. I was starting to jones for the 'cucarache-omakase' at Morimoto.

[jmbrightman]

Look on the Action News site.

6abc.com

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can someone please link to the location of the report itself, rather than a site's homepage? I can't find it on either phillymag or channel 6's sites.

[philadining]

http://www.phila.gov/health/units/ehs/Rest..._Inspectio.html

[VictorFiorillo]

Our report came down just because we relaunched the website this morning.

The original Excel file provided by the city (and sortable by zip code, establishment type, etc) is here...

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/food_protection_report

[Bluehensfan]

Apparently Steven Starr was less than amused about the errant report being sent out...

Philadelphia Weekly Article

By the way, the second report is very long and comprehensive. Maybe a bit too much so seeing that one or two of the places I frequent have not fared all that well.