New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has voted to require all of the city's restaurants to post letter grades reflecting each establishment's cleanliness.
Letter grades
have been used in Los Angeles County restaurants for the past 11 years. This measure has been credited with reducing the number of hospitalizations due to food-borne illness in the region, according
to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
CSPI, which has been lobbying cities and state legislatures to adopt such measures, lauded NYC's move. In 2008, the organization's review
of 539 restaurant inspections in 20 cities found that two-thirds of restaurants had "critical" food safety violations.--Karlene Lukovitz