Guess What’s Coming With Dinner?


Naturally, some companies react to the bad publicity that run-ins with the Health Department cause with emergency PR campaigns. Dolly Madison Ice Cream Company was recently cited for a number of violations including a bacteria count several times higher than the danger level for dairy products. After the ice cream makers had a heated confrontation with city officials they promised to comply with the proper health codes. In order to win back any consumers that may have been lost, they launched a makeshift TV blitz of 60-second commercials in which the owner’s son was seen licking a cone of Dolly Madison ice cream. A voice-over assured viewers that Dolly Madison ice cream was indeed safe. The Health Department intended to take them to court over that precise question.

Public health experts are also becoming exasperated with some of the practices that have arisen in the courts. A year and a half ago just one City Solicitor handled all of the health code violation cases. He was a judicial expert in that field and had established a good working relationship with the inspectors and the courts. Cases were dealt with fairly, quickly and efficiently. But since he left, the health cases are just distributed among the stable of municipal lawyers. Breakdowns seem to have occurred and cases now drag on for as long as four months. The morale of the inspectors has begun to weaken because if they insist on taking a violator to court the ensuing hassle may waste time and effort.

Political pressure never was a problem but subtle steps have now been taken to circumvent the efforts of both the inspectors and the lawyers. Recently, a 30-day extension was granted to a serious violator to clean up his establishment but neither the City Solicitor’s office nor the Health Department was informed of the move. Many people fear this may be a dire foreshadowing of unsavory things to come:

In the suburbs things go much more smoothly.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture assumes all inspection functions for Delaware and Montgomery Counties, thus thinning still further their already anemic force of field personnel.

Chester and Bucks Counties are mini-versions of Philadelphia with small, self-contained health departments of their own.

The suburban problems more often involve septic-tanks and well-water rather than rats and food poisoning, but even in typically suburban settings the levels of sanitation and public health are just as far removed from the ideal.

Lee Thomas, director of environmental health protection for Bucks County, estimates that there is only a 75% compliance rate with sanitation codes for that area. He insists that with limited manpower and moderate funds this is the best that can be expected. But compared to the situation in Philadelphia, the circumstances in Bucks County are pretty close to ideal.

Thomas has a field force of 17 inspectors to police a population of only 415,000. Bucks County’s one man for every 24,000 people is a far cry from Philadelphia’s one man for every 80,000. With that many men, Thomas can inspect most food establishments on the average of once every other month. In addition, the state inspectors take a more active role in all phases of enforcement outside Philadelphia, including routine restaurant coverage.

But suburban health officials are just as gun-shy about using publicity to aid enforcement as are their Philadelphia counterparts. Thomas refuses to divulge the name of a single violator, despite the possible danger to patrons or consumers, because as he says, "It wouldn’t be fair to the new owners of dirty places that are trying to clean up." Meanwhile, the unsuspecting citizen just has to take his chances with contaminated food inside and outside Philadelphia.