11/29/2005
Chester Daily Local Online
SARAH E. MORAN, Staff Writer
Chester County restaurants are notable exceptions to the rule that many Pennsylvania eateries are only sporadically inspected annually for health and sanitation safety.
Just ask David Magrogan, who owns four Kildare’s restaurants in West Chester, King of Prussia, Media and Manayunk, and is building a fifth on Society Hill in Philadelphia.
“I would eat anywhere in Chester County or elsewhere in the Philadelphia area,” Magrogan said. “Counties here do their own restaurant inspections and they are the toughest inspections in the state.”

Chester County is one of six counties statewide — the others are Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia in this region as well as Allegheny in Pittsburgh — that conduct their own inspections.
Elsewhere in the state, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is supposed to inspect restaurants and other food-related places.
The agriculture department inherited the job in 1994. Four cities and more than 200 other municipalities statewide still inspect their own food establishments, among them Media and Springfield in Delaware County.
Late last week, state auditors made public a blistering two-year audit of the department’s inspection activity, charging that 4,000 of the more than 17,000 restaurants, bars and retail food purveyors got new licenses even when they weren’t inspected for at least two years.
The audit didn’t include inspections done by county health departments such as Chester County’s.
Jack Wagner, the state auditor general, charged that the results turned up “systemic weakness” in the state inspections process.
Agriculture department spokesman Chris Ryder explained that, if a county has a full-fledged health department, then it must do its own inspections.
Established in 1968, the Chester County Health Department began restaurant inspections in 1969.
In Chester County, 10 environmental health specialists must inspect the 1,598 restaurants at least once a year, according to Chester County Health Department environmental health supervisor Andy Worth.
Worth supervises all 10 inspectors. Three positions are currently empty, he said, while he awaits news about whether current budget constraints will eliminate them.
Each year, the 10 inspectors must also visit and license the county’s 189 retail food outlets (where dishes are served but not put together on-premises),113 mobile food units (such as the West Chester University lunch trucks) and 477 special events, such as community fairs and charitable events where food is served.
Inspectors are also responsible for swimming pool, lead paint and health inspections related to mosquitoes, rodents and roaches.
The Chester County inspectors made 2,600 inspections in 2004, Worth noted. That averages out to about 1.6 inspections per eatery, per year.
Stephanie Goldberg, Kildare’s executive chef, said that the West Chester Kildare’s, in the unit block of West Gay Street, sees Chester County Health Department inspector Teresa Bampadre at least three times annually — once for a full three-hour inspection, plus several other follow-up visits.
She checks everything from the temperatures of cooked and uncooked foods (to make sure they’re properly stored and served to retard bacterial growth) to chemical levels in the dishwasher.
Average number of violations for restaurants is three per inspection, Worth said, though a handful have no violations and some have as many as 15.
Beginning Jan. 1, the Chester County Health Department will begin publicizing results of its health inspections, though exactly how it will do so remains to be seen, Worth said.
Previously, Chester County officials believed that, because inspections were investigatory, the health department was under no obligation to divulge what it found.
But Worth added that state right-to-know laws spurred officials to change their minds about publishing results.
The agriculture department has 57 inspectors statewide and a 2005 budget of $8.3 million, a 15 percent drop from 2002, said Chris Ryder, the agriculture department spokesman.
Come 2006, the statewide food inspection service will get a new computer system, replacing an antique dating from the 1970s.
The new system includes a section where health and safety violations will be posted publicly, Ryder said — something the current system does not provide.
The deaths of four people from an outbreak of hepatitis A at a Pittsburgh-area Chi-Chi’s restaurant in 2003 prompted the state audit. The outbreak sickened another 660 more.
Separately, State Rep. Arthur D. Hershey, R-13th, of Cochranville, and chairman of the House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee, announced that his group will continue its work on legislation to improve the state restaurant-inspection process.
To contact staff writer Sarah E. Moran, send an e-mail to smoran@dailylocal.com.