Why is New Hanover County months behind on restaurant inspections?

Dorothea Maine walked into a Wilmington restaurant Wednesday night with her husband and grandchildren and noticed the eatery’s health sanitation grade posted next to the menu.

“I notice them and was impressed with how clean this place was,” she said. Sometimes she checks the score, “just for the fun of it.”

When asked if she noticed the date on the scorecard, Maine shrugged.

If she had, she would have seen the restaurant, even with a high score, was last inspected eight months ago. It's supposed to be inspected twice a year.

And the eatery is not alone.

Nearly 32 percent of public, dine-in restaurants in New Hanover County — 247 — have yet to be inspected in 2019. While not all require quarterly assessments, most are overdue. In Wrightsville Beach, around one-third of restaurants haven't been inspected since September — an 11-month gap in oversight.

County officials say 493 New Hanover County restaurants require quarterly inspections, and they are currently two quarters behind.

Yes, health inspectors drop into restaurants unannounced for sanitation inspections, but chefs like Wesley Hucks, who runs the kitchen at Beer Barrio downtown, have an idea of when to expect them.

Beer Barrio is supposed to be inspected quarterly, but hasn’t seen an inspector since Dec. 3, 2018, according to the county's health inspections database. Hucks said this doesn’t change anything for how they operate Beer Barrio. He always goes through proper food safety procedures and trains his staff to do so as well. But, there is an added level of pressure when he starts to think an inspector could be due for a visit.

"There isn't anything that worries us about the inspections because we constantly update staff on food safety issues and practices and we always score above a 95 — but when you are expecting [inspectors] every day, we are always on edge knowing they could be coming," said Hucks.

In his 15 years in the Wilmington food industry, Hucks said he has seen the department miss some quarters, but never a backlog quite like this.

"When I talk with friends in the industry lately," he said, "we just ask each other, 'Have you been inspected yet,' and the answer is always no."

At Your Pie on Oleander Drive, owner Jada McDonald Baker said she, too, is eager for the next inspection.

“We don’t look at the health department as a villain, if we don’t get something right we take the opportunity to learn what we can do better because we never want to put our customers in a bad situation,” she said. “We really take a lot of pride in our high scores and pretend we are getting inspected everyday — those grades over the door really matter.”

Multiple obstacles

New Hanover County's environmental health department is tasked with inspecting not only 1,044 total food service establishments across the county (769 of them public dine-in spaces), but also an additional 900 establishments such as nursing homes, tattoo parlors, public swimming pools, food trucks and other public places.

Alicia Pickett, an environmental health supervisor for the county, said multiple obstacles have led to the county's inspection backlog, starting with Hurricane Florence.

"Our specialists were working with emergency operation centers and points of distribution in an emergency response capacity for 13 days, working shifts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and in the midst of all that, we realized we needed some environmental health assessments to be done," Pickett said.

Specialists deployed each day to consult with restaurants regaining power and opening back up after the storm. They lost nearly an entire quarter of inspection time due to this emergency response mode, helping restaurants specifically navigate what foods to throw out and making sure the equipment was working properly once power was back.

Then, several inspectors retired. Currently, six people share the role of inspecting the nearly 2,000 establishments, many of those multiple times a year. A separate group of inspectors regulate on-site infrastructure, such as septic tanks for facilities.

A restaurant inspection can take upwards of three hours to complete, as inspectors spend time observing practices in each kitchen and educating the staff.

An annual wave hit the department, too. Each spring, inspectors turn their attention to more than 450 seasonal swimming pools. Already down people and behind schedule, restaurants and other facilities were shifted down on the priority list.

A slow solution

While Pickett said she does not have an exact date of when the county will be back on its regular inspection schedule, she and officials do have a plan.

Her team has re-prioritized which restaurants and establishments will get seen first. The establishments with the highest risk factors, and those serving people at higher risk, like nursing homes, are top priority in light of the department's entire mission: to keep people in the community safe.

The department also is seeking to add two more inspectors for more manpower. Hiring new inspectors for the county, or any county in North Carolina, isn't as easy as interviewing a candidate, however.

Inspectors go through weeks of state certifications and training, then months of riding along with other inspectors to learn hands-on. In all, it takes at least six months for a new hire to run their first inspection on their own — and that is just for restaurants. The candidates need more months of training and certifications to inspect childcare facilities or school buildings.

According to multiple environmental health officials at the county and state level, a backlog for a county after a natural disaster and internal turnover is common.

“Specialists are hard to come by, so a lot of counties are struggling,” said New Hanover County Environmental Health Director David Howard.

He said there is a high growth rate in the county within the restaurant industry, and that turnover is common. The county will not face any repercussions from the state for the backlog, Howard said, because the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services works with the county instead of as an adversary.

Sarah Lewis Peel, a spokesperson for NCDHHS, confirmed the two agencies are working together and that New Hanover or other counties that get behind will not get in trouble from the state.

"One of NCDHHS’ roles is to provide training and delegation of authority (i.e., authorization) to local health department staff to enforce the environmental health laws and rules," Peel said in an email response. "NCDHHS regional consultants have expedited training and authorization to assist New Hanover with obtaining new staff."

In addition to recommending the county follow a procedure in prioritizing high-risk establishments, she said regional consultants will continue to monitor and assist New Hanover during this recovery period.

“We are being resilient to everything we were faced with and the challenges we are dealing with — our staff has been given more than they ever have and they were in the shelters with the community and now we are all rebuilding,” Pickett said. “Our piece of the pie to do that is to keep restaurants clean and educate managers so that when we leave, they are still practicing proper food safety.”

Are restaurants safe?

Pickett is often asked what restaurants around town she wouldn't eat in, since she knows what happens behind-the-scenes during inspections.

“I would eat at any one of our restaurants,” she said.

“Honestly, I would eat at any restaurant in town, because I know who has inspected it, I know the education and time spent in each place and I know if there was an issue my staff corrected it or we gave the restaurant time to fix it and then we went back to check,” she said. “I wouldn’t eat in the restaurants we have closed, but if they are open and operating I would eat at any of them.”

At Beer Barrio, Hucks said he knows they follow proper procedures, but he knows of some other restaurants where they struggle with cleanliness.

“These restaurants are missing inspections in the hottest months of the year and some risks could be missed like refrigeration having issues while it’s so hot out,” he said. “The summertime definitely increases the risks for food borne illnesses and the cooks might not notice. In an eight to 10 month period of not being inspected, it is only natural some restaurants would slack.”

And since the public is going into these restaurants, Pickett said, her specialists are invested and taking the inspections seriously.

“We see parents going into childcares with their children and families going into restaurants — we aren’t going to walk out of there if it's a bad situation,” Pickett said. “We want it safe.”

Reporter Ashley Morris can be reached at 910-343-2096 or Ashley.Morris@StarNewsOnline.com.

It doesn't add up

Despite its best efforts, the New Hanover County Health Department would have to run at maximum efficiency (and take no vacation time) in order to come close to fulfilling all of its inspection duties in a year.

1,929: Number of total establishments (food, restaurants, lodging, pools, tattoo parlors, etc.) that require inspection

493: Number of restaurants that require quarterly inspections (493 x 4 = 1,972)

3,408: Minimum number of inspections if everything else only gets inspected once (1,972 + 1,436 remaining establishments)

6: Number of inspectors

568: Average number of visits required per inspector (3,408 divided by 6)

261: Approximate working days in a year

2.1: Inspections required per day to make the 3,408 number (568 divided by 261)

3: Minimum number of hours required per restaurant inspection

When and how?

Of the more than 1,000 food establishments in New Hanover County, 769 of them have been classified as a "restaurant" by the county health department in its database of inspections. Based on culinary risk factors, they vary on the required number of inspections per year:

Once annually: Do not serve potentially hazardous foods and lean on reusable products (i.e.: Breweries that don't serve food)

Twice annually: Establishments with menus that don't require much food preparation, and cook and serve immediately (i.e.: quick deli sandwiches)

Three times annually: A medium level of preparation that does cook some food in advance and stores it to be reheated and served in the future (Single-food speciality restaurants)

Four times annually: An establishment with a complex menu that cooks, cools and reheats several foods (most independent, dine-in restaurants). Also, establishments that serve a population with a higher-than-normal chance of falling ill (nursing homes) 

Want to check out local restaurant inspections, including grades and dates, as well as other facilities in New Hanover County? Go to bit.ly/NewHanoverInspections for detailed information.