New Health Inspection Placards, Public Database Begins

New inspection placards for public display in Pasadena’s restaurants and other permanent food facilities will be issued by the City’s Public Health Department beginning July 1, 2014. The placards will indicate a facility’s status of Pass, Conditional Pass or Closed at the time of the inspection.

The new placards showing Pass or Conditional Pass will have numeric scores displayed that were received as part of the inspections. Placards showing a Closed status means an inspection revealed there was an imminent health hazard that required closure or that the permit was suspended due to non-compliance. Closed placards will indicate the reason for closure instead of a numerical score.

All placards will include a special “QR” code that can be scanned with a smart phone app for additional information about the food facility linked to a new inspection database on the City’s website. The database is online at http://decadeonline.com/main.phtml?agency=PAS.

Permanent food facilities that will receive the new placards include restaurants, markets, bakeries, bars, school cafeterias, commissaries and retail food processing facilities. The businesses are required to publicly display the placards.

Initial inspections by the Health Department resulting in scores of 85 to 100 will receive a Pass placard. Conditional Pass placards with scores of 75 to 84 means minimal code compliance was achieved and a follow-up inspection must be done. Conditional Pass scores of 74 and below mean minimal compliance also was achieved, but violations that were found require a mandatory Permit Suspension Hearing plus a follow-up inspection.

The new placards and the public database are the most recent steps taken by the Health Department’s Environmental Health Division to improve its service to the public and increase awareness of its mission to ensure that food sold and served in the City of Pasadena is safe, wholesome, properly labeled, and produced under sanitary conditions. The Health Department’s mandatory inspections are required per the California Health and Safety Code.

For more than 120 years, the Pasadena Public Health Department has worked to promote and protect the health of the greater Pasadena area. For more information, visit www.cityofpasadena.net/publichealth.

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