About food establishment inspections
Summary
In this section of EveryBlock, you can find recent inspection reports from restaurants throughout Los Angeles County — including the establishments' inspection score and details about violations.
These records, which we get from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, also include the date of inspection, the facility's type (restaurant, retail food market, caterer, etc.), the date the establishment was inspected, the establishment's name and its location.
No inspection scores appear for food warehouses or wholesale food markets. The county inspects wholesale establishments differently and doesn't assign point values to their violations. The county defines wholesale establishments as any room, building, or place or portion thereof, maintained, used or operated for the purpose of commercially packaging, making, cooking, baking, mixing, processing, bottling, canning, slaughtering, salvaging, storing, or otherwise preparing or handling food, including ice, for human or animal consumption, which is not offered for retail sale or gift on the premises.
Note that we at EveryBlock also list the city where the restaurant is located. That's because the information published here includes establishments throughout Los Angeles County, not just the city of Los Angeles proper.
Source
The data comes from the Facility Rating page published by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The health department updates its database periodically, usually by adding many inspections that cover a wide array of dates in a single day. This means the data is generally weeks and sometimes months behind, but we at EveryBlock check for new inspections daily.
How does the inspection process work?
The Environmental Health, Food Inspection Bureau is responsible for food safety in Los Angeles County.
In California, health inspectors focus on guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Their methods are outlined in the Retail Food Inspection Guide.
For non-wholesale establishments, violations are identified as major, which require immediate corrective action, or minor, which require corrective action by the compliance date on the inspection report. Violations can also be identified as posing a lower risk to the public, or as being against good retail practices.
Each violation is given a point value, and the total number of points is subtracted from 100 to come up with the inspection score. Establishments with 90 or more points get an A, and are designated as generally superior in food handling practices and overall food facility maintenance. Eighty to 89 points prompts a B grade, and so on.
Any establishment earning less than 70 points is deemed to have poor food-handling practices and overall general food facility maintenance. Food facilities that score below 70 twice in one year are subject to closure and the filing of a court case.
There are situations as determined by the health inspector, where violations pose imminent health hazards that warrant immediate closure, such as sewage, no hot water or vermin. In those situations, the establishment's permit will be suspended. This action does not affect the grade or score of the facility but is related to the conditions that warranted the closure.
As noted above, wholesale establishments are inspected using a different system that doesn't assign point values to violations.
To find establishment closures near you, check out EveryBlock's food closures page.
