Food Safety in Pa.: Beyond the Capitol Cafeteria; Two Bills Offered to Improve the System

If you live in Pennsylvania, you've probably heard about the gross-out findings at the cafeteria in the state Capitol building. If not, here's a quick summary: The cafeteria apparently fell through the cracks for four years -- the state and the city each say they thought the other was inspecting it, and neither did. In December, the state did and found several violations, including rodent droppings in multiple places. (You can read the inspection report here.)

In January, a new state inspection found more problems -- ironically on the same day two House committees held a joint hearing partly about the previous month's cafeteria discoveries.

The good news is that this may provide some momentum for getting a food safety bill passed. The sponsor, Rep. Mike Carroll, D-Luzerne, told the Harrisburg Patriot-News the bill (H.B. 174) would improve the restaurant inspection process and resolve jurisdictional issues that led to the four-year lapse between inspections of the Capitol cafeteria.

Carroll told the Scranton newspaper the cafeteria's problems could have been avoided if his bill was already law: "My bill links together the inspections with the license renewal and posts the results on the Internet."

As the Chambersburg newspaper reports, under current law, many cities and towns do their own local restaurant inspections instead of having the state do it, but those local governments aren't required to post the reports on the Internet. Some do; others don't. Under Carroll's bill, those reports would have to be forwarded to the state, which would post them online.

The Democratic-majority House passed the bill last June, sending it to the Republican-majority Senate, where it has remained in committee. (Full disclosure: I work for the House Democrats, although I am only expressing MY OWN opinions on this blog. But if you think I'm being partisan, please read to the end of this blog post - you may change your mind. :-)

The Scranton newspaper also reported that "Carroll first introduced the bill several years ago. The House approved it last session (2007-08) but it died in the Senate Appropriations Committee."

The Jan. 26 Philadelphia Inquirer relayed this quote: "It's not stalled," said Kristin Crawford, executive director of the Senate Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee. "We've been reviewing the bill."

Maybe so, but June to February - that's eight months. If you live in Pennsylvania and want to urge your state senator to support House Bill 174, you can find his or her contact info at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/. (If you don't know who your state senator is, you can find out by entering your zip code at the top right of that page.)

You can find the names of the Senate committee members and their contact information here.

The state Senate did recently pass what appears to be its own piece of common-sense food-safety legislation, in response to another incident that has made news in Pennsylvania -- here's a summary from the Jan. 26 Patriot-News:

"Last spring, one of the department’s inspectors laid down the law to the ladies of St. Cecilia’s at a Lenten fish fry. After spotting the women in the kitchen at the Beaver County Catholic church cutting slices of their homemade pies to sell, the state food safety inspector doing the annual inspection ordered them to cease and desist. He warned them that they were about to commit an illegal act — selling baked goods to the public made in an unlicensed kitchen."

This week, the Senate passed a bill 49-0 to address this. As the Patriot-News describes it, the bill would "allow nonprofit groups, including church groups, Boy Scouts and youth sports teams, to sell homemade baked goods, provided they put the consumer on notice that the food was made in an unlicensed, uninspected kitchen."

That bill (S.B. 828) sounds reasonable enough to me, although the devil is in the details sometimes.

Bottom line: Both of these bills sound like common sense, and it seems like the people of Pennsylvania would be better off if both were to become law.