Do you think health department restaurant letter grading helps?

"... I believe the city has been using the grading system as an excuse to fine hardworking restaurant owners and is simply trying to generate revenue," said Greenfield, whose research concluded that fines have more than doubled in the last ten years in New York City.

Tellingly, the administration's preliminary budget for next year has an increase in fines already budgeted in. "I'm all for clean restaurants, however, I'm against putting our best restaurants out of business by increasing fines for minor infractions like forgetting to cover a light bulb in a storage closet," Greenfield explained.

...Comments from Councilman David G. Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) at last night's City Council oversight hearing.

The restaurant grading system has the support of the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers and it is a valuable public health tool. I hope that any changes the City Council makes to the system actually make it better and not worse.

lol politicians rarely make things better.