Restaurant owners, association have issues with online inspection reports

Restaurant owners in Newfoundland and Labrador have a bone to pick with the provincial government's online inspection reports.

Last fall, government established the system, enabling reports to be accessed on its website.

Andrea Maunder, one of the owners of Bacalao restaurant in St. John's, said that she agrees that inspection reports should be made public, but that these reports sometimes showcase problems that have already been resolved.

"Somebody I know, actually, who had the inspector arrive just as they had discovered that one of their fridges wasn't working properly and they were already in the process of dealing with it," Maunder said.

"It was still left as a critical violation for them."

Nancy Brace, executive director of the restaurant association of Newfoundland and Labrador, said the reports often include descriptions of 'critical issues.' Those issues have to be corrected before an inspector leaves the property.

However, Brace said the inspector's initial findings are still posted online, for months on end. 

"The issue is it has to be meticulously kept, and in a timely fashion, so we've had a couple of other chefs who say they were written up as a critical when the issue was being looked after while the inspector was standing there," said Brace.

"It's not that they're doing their job wrong, it's that the general public doesn't know the inner workings of it … so they see it as an issue when in actual fact it's an issue that's been resolved."

The Association is meeting with Service NL Minister Nick McGrath to discuss its concerns on Monday.