At Thursday's City Council meeting, Chapter 13 of City Code was updated to adopt new Texas Food Establishment Rules.
Metro Health says the letter grade system for inspections will be easier for the public to understand and improve transparency. The department is moving from a demerit scoring scale where "0" is considered perfect to a 100-point system where a perfect score is 100.
Restaurants will be able to voluntarily post an ABC grade placard issued by Metro Health starting June 1. And, no, you can't make your own placard if you fail. That's prohibited.
Additional changes in code will allow farmer's markets to operate for two days a week per market per calendar month instead of one day a week; food establishments are no longer able to transfer licenses between locations; and all food service workers, regardless of position, will be required to obtain food handler training and certification, which can be obtained online at a cost of $8 to $20.
The food handler requirement is effective on October 1 and all other changes, excluding the placard system, are effective April 1.
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