Restaurant inspections now online

The provincial government is now making restaurant inspection reports available on its website.

Previously, to access a report a request would have to be sent to Service NL, which could take up to five days to process. Failing that, an access to information request would have to be filed, which could take at least a month to produce.

Last spring, CBC filed access to information requests and paid more than $400 to get the restaurant reports. At that time, a minister described a request for one of those reports as a "fishing expedition."

Service NL Minister Nick McGrath said the process is much simpler now.

"These new online resources will allow information from inspection reports for restaurants and take-outs to be available online in a PDF format and accessible from any computer, 24 hours a day," he said.

Restaurants can be searched through the online access system alphabetically or by region.