Schulman reads Council Member Santoso statement on Intro 908

With that, I would like to read a brief statement by Councilmember Santantososo on her legislation.

I would like to thank Councilmember Shulman for including Intro 908 onto today's agenda and the legislative staff, especially Christopher Pepe, for their work drafting this bill.

Intro 908 would close a bureaucratic loophole that is hurting beloved restaurants across our city.

Currently, any restaurant that is open for business

must have at least one person on site who holds a food protection certificate.

This is an important regulation that helps keep restaurants safe for patrons.

However, when DOHMH conducts an inspection, the certified worker must have a physical copy of the certificate on hand.

Otherwise, the restaurant could receive a serious violation and hefty fine, despite DOHMH presumably having a database that shows who is certified.

So if a worker forgot to bring their certificate to work that day, the restaurant is penalized, despite the fact that this worker is a duly certified food protection worker.

This legislation is very simple.

It would require DOHMH to create and maintain a digital database of food protection certificate holders and to consult that database during inspections if a worker does not have their certificate on hand.

This would not eliminate DOHMH's ability to enforce the underlying rule requiring certification in the first place and does not change food safety requirements.

It simply recognizes that we are in an increasingly digital world and that checking a database is often a more

efficient system than requiring a worker to remember a physical card every day.

Passing this legislation would demonstrate to the hospital industry that the city supports them and wants to make it easier for them to continue serving our neighborhoods for years to come.