What if there were roaches scurrying under the woks at your favorite Chinese restaurant? Or black mold in the ice machine and rodent droppings too numerous to count at your usual lunch spot?

That's probably something you would want to know.

For years, the Allegheny County Health Department has been promising to post restaurant inspections online so customers could get a glimpse of what goes on in the kitchens and pantries of local restaurants before stepping out to eat.

Last week, the county again said it is closer to making that goal a reality.

The health department said it is ready to submit a draft proposal to the county's Board of Health in May for revamping the restaurant inspection program as a prelude to posting inspection reports online. No time frame was given for when the online service might be launched.

The plans were unveiled to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week after its inquiry to County Executive Dan Onorato's office the previous week sparked a meeting between representatives of his office and the health department's longtime chief, Bruce Dixon.

During an interview a few days before the meeting, Dr. Dixon made no mention of the draft proposal.

When asked about the delays in getting restaurant inspections online, Dr. Dixon said the food division had been "very slow" in getting things done.

"I have a limited number of people and they don't move quickly," he said. "Do I like it? No, I don't like it."

As for a target date, Dr. Dixon said there isn't one.

"I would hate to give a timetable and not be able to meet it."

Currently, the only way for people to see inspection reports is to go to the food safety division in Lawrenceville or make a written request for paper copies through the mail at a cost of 50 cents per page.

Food safety advocates say posting inspection reports publicly is a powerful incentive for restaurants to strictly follow safe food-handling practices and help protect people from being sickened by food they eat.

The state Department of Agriculture, which inspects restaurants in counties that don't have their own inspection programs, has made its inspection reports available to the public online since 2007. (To view the site, visit www.agriculture.state.pa.us/ and search for "Food safety inspection results.")

Back then, the county health department said it wasn't ready to go online, but that doing so had been a goal for a number of years. The county has been discussing putting reports online at least since 2004. In 2008, Dr. Dixon told the Post-Gazette the department planned to post inspections online sometime in 2009.

In the interview two weeks ago, Dr. Dixon said he did not want to allow online access of the reports without first revamping the inspection program so that it is more uniform.

"If you put [inspection reports] up like that, you will have a howl from everyone -- the public, restaurants, inspectors, everyone," he said.

Under the current system, "there is too much variability from one observer to the next," he said. "One inspector says there are no problems, one says there are 20 problems. That has to be leveled out."

According to Mr. Onorato's office, the health department's proposal is to start grading restaurants using a numerical scoring system starting at 100 percent and subtracting points for any food safety violations inspectors uncover. The more serious the violations, the bigger the deduction would be.

The reports "will be more standardized and easier to understand," said Kevin Evanto, Mr. Onorato's spokesman.

The new system, modeled after a statewide program in North Carolina, would have to be approved by both the county board of health and county council, he said. Restaurant owners and the public would have "numerous" opportunities to comment on the proposed new system before it would take effect, Mr. Evanto said.

A few days after the newspaper's call to Dr. Dixon's office last month, the health department launched a "restaurant finder" on its website, allowing people to enter a restaurant's name and see the date of the most recent inspection.

"You have to admit, there has been progress," Mr. Evanto said last week. The health department "tells us they are moving toward a time when you will be able to click on the restaurant and see the actual inspection report. You could see the violations and issues restaurants are having."

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has for years been pushing for better public disclosure of restaurant inspection reports. The consumer advocacy group supports online access as "a step in the right direction" in terms of providing consumer access to what should be public information, staff attorney Sarah Klein said.

Still, the group believes an even better way to give consumers inspection information is to post it in restaurant windows.

"Many dining decisions are made literally as you are driving or walking down the street," Ms. Klein said. "We prefer a numerical score or a letter grade in the front window so consumers can make informed decisions at the point of purchase, when they are making a decision on where to spend their dining dollars."

Dr. Dixon said the health department had not decided whether to require restaurants to display their percentage scores once a new inspection system was in place.

"We may do that," he said. "Details have to be worked out."

Mr. Evanto said Mr. Onorato was "strongly in favor" of posting the scores, making them "very visible so consumers can't miss it," similar to the placards that restaurants in North Carolina must display showing their inspection scores.

A spokesman for the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association said he was skeptical of the idea.

"I wouldn't be in favor of posting a number on the door, especially if [the information] was already on the website," said Jeff Cohen, co-owner of Smallman Street Deli and outgoing president of the local restaurant chapter.

One problem with posting scores, he said, is that inspection reports represent a single point in time. "You can always find something [wrong] if you are looking for something," he said.

"The truth is, restaurant owners take this business seriously," he said. "These restaurants are very safe to eat in."

Ms. Klein said posting grades or scores in windows has proven to be a powerful incentive for restaurants to follow the rules. In Los Angeles County, which has used an A-B-C grading system for more than a decade, displaying grades has been credited with cutting hospitalizations from foodborne illnesses by 20 percent, Ms. Klein said.

"When restaurants know that inspection results will be as visible to consumers as the decor, suddenly what's going on behind closed doors becomes a real priority," she said.

"It forces them to be on their toes because they know consumers will be using the information to make dining decisions. Right now, short of being closed, poor performance is the restaurant's hidden shame."

In Los Angeles County, restaurants unhappy with their grades can appeal, Ms. Klein said. During the appeal process, grades do not have to be posted in the window.

Ms. Klein said that some restaurant owners' fears that posting anything less than an "A" rating would wreck their business have not been borne out by studies. In a 2003 study in Los Angeles, restaurants scoring an "A" saw business go up almost 7 percent, while "B" restaurants showed an increase of 0.7 percent, she said. Restaurants with "C" ratings saw a 1 percent decline in revenue. (Restaurants scoring less than a "C" must close until violations are corrected.)

Under Allegheny County's current system, the health department has the power to issue fines and post yellow "Consumer Alert" decals in restaurant windows for uncorrected critical food safety violations.

But a review by the Post-Gazette in 2008 of inspection reports for nearly 100 restaurants in Ross over a three-year period found the department almost never took those steps, allowing restaurants to repeatedly violate food safety regulations and leaving the public unaware.

Among the unappetizing scenes uncovered during the review were a persistent roach problem at a Chinese restaurant, including a live roach observed in the cooking area; foods consistently being held at dangerous temperatures at a sushi buffet; and a chef arranging cooked broccoli on plates using his bare hand, the same bare hand he had used seconds earlier to cover a sneeze and wipe his nose. That observation was made at the same Chinese restaurant with the roach infestation during one of 12 visits inspectors made there over three years without issuing any fines or consumer alerts.

At the time of that review, Dr. Dixon said he believed the department should be issuing more alerts. "I think they are sometimes loathe to do them," he said.

In the interview two weeks ago, Dr. Dixon said that while the number of consumer alerts had risen last year -- 15 alerts were issued among some 7,500 food establishments countywide in 2009, up from a handful in each of the prior three years -- he said the department needed to do a better job.

The reluctance to post alerts "is a philosophical thing we are in the process of trying to change," Dr. Dixon said. "You are talking about 40 years of habit."

He said switching to a numerical scoring system would aid the effort.

"If a restaurant scores below a certain amount, [the public] will get a consumer alert," he said. Currently there are no set standards for issuing an alert. Typically, he said, the department waits until there are three bad inspections in a row before posting a warning.

The mandate for the food safety division, which will have 17 inspectors April 12 when two vacancies are filled, is to inspect restaurants at least once a year.

But the newspaper's 2008 review of Ross restaurants found that roughly one in three went more than a year between inspections. The average time between inspections was 191/2 months. In addition, a sampling of 27 restaurants from around the county found roughly half were not inspected annually.

At the time, Dr. Dixon said the newspaper's findings were not representative of the county as a whole, saying roughly 90 percent of restaurants were inspected on time that year. He vowed that 100 percent would be inspected on time in 2009.

When asked if the department met its goal last year, Dr. Dixon said he didn't know.

"We haven't looked at it," he said.

Mr. Onorato's office has asked the health department to compile those results, Mr. Evanto said.

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