When the whole thing was new, I think a lot of people were very conscientious about the A or the B or the C, and they were looking for that, but then as time went on it kind of fell to the wayside,'' said Joe Allarcon, owner of Gene's Family Restaurant, a Hawthorne restaurant that has a B posted. But other diners such as Craymer, a furniture manufacturer in Los Angeles who believes he's become ill a number of times from restaurant meals, trust in the ratings. He said the posted grades are especially popular with business people, who meet over meals, and with people in their 30s and 40s. Three years ago, Canter s Deli, a famous Los Angeles restaurant, was criticized in a television report on food-handling practices. That letter-grading system is one of the ways Los Angeles lets residents know how restaurants rate in food safety.
Some experts agree that consumers deserve the information.
The state of Florida, which puts a monthly list on the Internet of restaurants fined for code violations. Los Angeles began posting grades on restaurants after a television news report on poor conditions in 1997. Restaurant owners didn't like the plan, but the publicity lit a fire under them, said Arturo Aguirre, director of environmental health for Los Angeles County. Los Angeles Times photo Roy Costa, a former restaurant inspector for the state of Florida and now a consultant, said that while agencies must be careful with grades, publishing them does change restaurants' behavior. One Florida county saw a 90 percent reduction in food-borne illness reports after publishing letter grades, Costa said.