When we do our Kitchen Cops reports every Tuesday and Thursday night at ten, the scores we report are from the health department.
They do the inspections.
Lately, some of our reporting of those scores is being questioned.
So we asked the health department, when is a perfect score really a perfect score ?
For example, on March 27th, we went to the Mustang Island Food Company in Port Aransas to award them a Perfect Score sticker.
This is the health inspectors report for the business, dated March 20th, that we received.
It reads ‘this inspection does not have any violations.’
There isn’t any other notation on it.
But the doors and windows at the place were boarded up.
There was a ‘for sale’ sign in front.
We called the number on it. The guy told us ‘we’ve been closed since April of last year.’
What? Wait a minute!
Lauren Rabe with the health department reviewed the report.
"Not open. Still doing repairs. Possibly a close out," she read.
Her report also shows this business was given zero demerits on the inspectors’ report.
It appears to the public, on their website, as a Perfect Score.
How?
It demonstrates that it was a Perfect Score. And so we’ve notified the inspectors that this is happening.
"So they can not open up the inspection form because it will give that establishment a 100, notifying the public and gives them a 100," Rabe told us.
In our Kitchen Cops from March 29th, our report showed Sammy’s and the Venetian Hot Plate, both in Port Aransas, earning perfect scores from inspectors.
A viewer commented on our Facebook page "Sammy’s is out of business and Venetian is still closed from Harvey. Your reporting was still wrong."
Rabe says this is on the 7 inspectors who write the reports.
"They have to make sure they put that comment down there ‘closed’ and not open up an inspection."
She further points out businesses are not required to notify inspectors that they’re either going out of business or closing for repairs.
And adds that inspectors should be proactive in getting this information and updating their files.
On last night’s Kitchen Cops report, inspectors gave Behringer’s Landing in Port Aransas a Perfect Score.
Today a viewer email informs us that place was destroyed by Harvey.
So from now on, Rabe assures us information like this will be corrected and easily visible to us and you on their website.
