Schulman asks about DOHMH ombudsman office and industry outreach
Schulman asks about the ombudsman office for establishments. Schiff says the ombudsperson is a point of contact for restaurant owners, can review concerns, and can coach inspectors if issues arise; she says DOHMH also sends industry e-blasts with ombudsperson and customer service contacts.
Do you also, I understand you have an ombudsman office for establishments.
Can you tell us something about that?
We're not on fire.
Yes.
So we do have an ombuds office, and that is a person, a point of contact person for restaurant owners if they have questions, if they have a complaint.
We do get compliments also from the restaurant industry about inspections, and our ombudsperson is there to really be an internal advocate for that restaurant inspector, for that restaurant owner.
So if there is some concern about what happened at the restaurant, that person can review, talk them through it.
If it turns out that there was some issue with the inspector, then that inspector can be coached, corrected, and so on.
I would say the vast majority of what comes into the ombudsperson is.
Questions?
Okay.
I don't think, like, when I was preparing for this hearing today, I didn't really know about the ombudsman office.
So if there's a way to get some information out, especially to the council members, and they can share it with their local businesses, and I think that would be really helpful.
And then it'll prevent us from doing legislation that...
Is like not really needed or so?
We would be happy to do that.
I will say that we are routinely issuing information to restaurants.
We do e-blasts to the entire industry.
And those often- You work with the Hospitality Alliance.
Yes, and those often include the contact information for the ombudsperson.
And we also have a customer service office.
And so we provide information about both of those contacts.
But we would be happy to get that information to you and have you support those outreach efforts.
The other thing, too, that just a suggestion that.
When there's a problem with a restaurant that maybe, because a lot of the local council members have relationships with those businesses and they can maybe help to get them to a place where they get an A.
So I think that would be really helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you.