Information they don't post in Newfoundland

A few days ago I noticed a CBC story about Newfoundland and Labrador not posting restaurant inspection results for the public to see, and not having any plans to do so in the near future.

At the time my thought was that the implementation of such a scheme would likely be relatively straightforward, particularly because the data already exists (and probably in a relatively accessible way).  Basically all the province would need to do is release it to the public.

Moments ago I happened to be browsing through New Brunswick related web-content and found their restaurant inspection depository.  From what I can tell from this site, it looks as though this process is just about as easy as thought it would be.  I imagine that they have a database that then feeds the site so that the most current reports are displayed and restaurant profiles automatically updated.  Presumably they would have such a database even if they weren't actively providing the information to the public, the internal management of the data would require such a structure.

Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the location being inspected seem to pass quite easily.  Though I was surprised to see some of the infractions.  In particular I was surprised to see infractions that I just wouldn't have really thought likely.

For instance, in at least one case a location was cited or not having refrigerators with thermometers.  Such an infraction immediately raises at least two questions.  Firstly, if fridge thermometers are required wouldn't you expect them to come with fridges?  Secondly, given that these inspections seem to be somewhat regular, how could such an infraction arise in a place that is not new to the food service industry?  Shouldn't such an infraction have been caught almost immediately?

If you examine the inspection report I just linked to you might also see that there seems to sometimes be inconsistency between the broad information provided about the report and the details contained within.  Notably, the report itself suggests that the last inspection was on November 22, 2011 and that the follow-up should be on December 6, 2011.  The higher level information suggests that the last inspection was on November 22, 2011 but that the follow-up inspection should be on January 16, 2012.

One final thing that I found interesting about these New Brunswick restaurant inspection reports is that they seem to either be done in English or French, not in both languages.  Furthermore, one has to open the report to see in which language the report was prepared.