Detroit City Council votes down restaurant health inspection sign ordinance

FOX 2 - A proposed ordinance requiring restaurants to make public their health inspection grades is no longer on the menu in Detroit.

City Council voted 6-3 rejecting the measure that Scott Benson has been pushing the past three years.

"This is really important," Benson said. "All you have to do is go back to 2018, to Popeyes selling pest-inflated meat. You have to go back to 2021 just last year, to Church's Chicken. They were selling rotten, moldy old meat."

And who could forget the famed Lafayette Coney Island getting shut down in September after videos of rats inside the restaurant surfaced on social media.

Benson's measure would have required Detroit restaurants post a color-coded sign outside of their business.

Green would mean they passed their last health inspection and are good to go. Yellow would mean they are in the enforcement process.  Red would mean the health department shut the restaurant down.

But many saw the ordinance as too burdensome on businesses.

"The ordinance does nothing more than create an uneven playing field, exempting food trucks, popup restaurants, gas stations that provide prepared meals, and pitting them against brick and mortar establishments," said one critic during public comment.

Benson says upwards of 90 percent of Detroit restaurants passed their health inspections. And similar ordinances bolstering transparency and food safety are in place in cities like San Diego, San Francisco and Columbus, Ohio.

Detroit won't be joining them just yet.

"While today was a setback, it's not the end," Benson said. "So what we'll do, we'll go back and look and see how we can get something like this through, and something my colleagues will support, at least five of them."

Council President Mary Sheffield voted against the restaurant grading ordinance.

"Despite my opposition to the ordinance at this time, I support my colleague, member Benson, in his attempt to enhance public safety as it relates to food services," she said. "While I could not support the ordinance in its current form, I am committed to finding a solution that will result in enhancements to our ability to protect the public."

Sheffield also said this measure could come back in another form next year if certain changes are made to it.