Two county board members call food license test unnecessary

Source: Grand Rapids Press
OTTAWA COUNTY -- A long-studied plan to test new restaurant owners on basic sanitation and food safety rules will get under way in June, despite the objections of two Ottawa County commissioners.

Commissioners approved the ordinance Tuesday that will require restaurant owners or managers to take a short test before they are issued a food service license.

The ordinance will not affect existing restaurant owners, but will apply to traveling food vendors, such as those who set up at Holland's Tulip Time.

Most commissioners supported the idea during a vote Tuesday, but Commissioners Dale Mohr and Cornelius VanderKam, both of Georgetown Township, voted against it.

Mohr said he simply did not think the testing was necessary, given the low rate of food-borne illnesses in Ottawa County. Mohr said he was aware of only three reported cases of illnesses last year.

"I think this is an area where we've stuck our government nose in where we don't have to," he said. "This is really arbitrary and capricious."

"If there were 200 cases of food poisoning, then maybe I could see it," Mohr said. "But I don't think it's necessary to stick our nose in where a problem doesn't exist." VanderKam agreed.

"I can find no compelling reason to enact an ordinance," he said.

VanderKam said the act of obtaining a food service license authorizes the county Health Department to investigate a business for cleanliness and check to see if proper sanitation rules are being followed.

VanderKam also said he was not certain how much good the ordinance will do because it only requires one person at a restaurant, typically the license holder, to take the test.

"It says nothing about employees," he said. VanderKam said the employees often are going to be the people directly responsible for sanitation issues.

But other commissioners insisted the test, which Health Department officials have said should be no more difficult than renewing a driver's license for those in the food service business, is a step in the right direction. "This is not meant to be a Big Brother, Gestapo tactic," Board Chairman Dennis Swartout of Grand Haven said. "It really is just intended to one more step in the public health arena toward safety."

Swartout said he does not expect the testing to be a big inconvenience on those required to take it, even for organizers of church dinner fund-raisers and service groups, such as the Lions Club, that host chicken barbecue fund-raisers.

Swartout, an administrator at the Tri-Cities Museum in Grand Haven, said he expects someone on the museum staff will have to take the test before an event later this year called "Feast of the Strawberry Moon."

The testing will apply to groups that serve food to the general public.

The ordinance will not take effect until after Tulip Time in May.
Source: Grand Rapids Press