Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein today praised the New York City Board of Health for advancing a proposal to give restaurants grades of A, B or C, depending on the conditions documented during inspections and require establishments to post the most recent grade in full view of potential customers.  Restaurants receiving grades of B or C would be inspected more often than those meeting higher standards, allowing the City to focus resources on the least sanitary restaurants, while placing no additional burden on establishments that maintain the best conditions.  Senator Klein has long advocated for such a system.  The Board of Health opened the public comment period for the proposal today.

"Our Administration never stops looking for new ways to make the City's government work better for all New Yorkers," said Mayor Bloomberg.  "Two ways we've done that are by never rejecting new ideas just because they weren't invented here, and by always giving the people we work for as much information as possible, in the easiest way for them to understand it.  The Board of Health's proposal today to create easy-to-understand letter grades for restaurant sanitary inspections and get those grades to customers before they go into a restaurant does both of these things at once.  For a long time now, Senator Jeff Klein has intelligently and persuasively urged New York City to adopt an improved version of the restaurant letter grades that other cities already use, and today's vote largely came about because of his dedication to the issue.  I want to thank Jeff and his staff, as well as the men and women of the City's Board of Health and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for all of their hard work moving this proposal ahead, and I look forward to hearing the feedback they get from New Yorkers on the plan."

"I applaud the NYC Board of Health for moving forward with the proposed changes to create a restaurant letter grading system that will empower diners to make smarter choices, reward restaurants for adopting the highest possible standards of cleanliness and make New York City a national leader in restaurant sanitation," said Senator Klein.  "Mayor Bloomberg and I have been working together on this issue for many months in an effort to improve public health in New York City and set the bar for restaurants in other parts of New York State."