Public safety at risk in Champaign County, IL.

In most towns across Illinois and the U.S., the Public Health Department publicizes any health code violation so that consumers can be aware of the risk they are taking by eating at a restaurant. However, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department chooses not to share the roughly 1,300  inspections done in a year. Many in the restaurant business don’t find this a problem, citing that once the violation is corrected, it should not matter. Unfortunately, there are repeat offenders; “Geovanti’s Bar & Grill on Green Street failed its restaurant inspections five times from September 2008 through February of this year.”

Opponents also state that “the public wouldn’t know about the “black moldy slime” found on the walls and ceiling of a walk-in cooler in July 2008 at the now-shuttered Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan on Green Street. Nor would the public be aware of the unsanitary conditions Garcia’s Mattis Avenue location – including a hand sink growing mold – that prompted a health inspector to declare, “The facility is filthy!” on an October 2009 inspection report.”