Published June 27, 2025 at 5:10 AM CDT
The Arlington City Council showed support for a change to the health ordinance that would require restaurants to prominently display their health inspection certificate.
Mayor Jim Ross said at the council's work session June 24 he supported the ordinance change because it could encourage restaurants to keep their places clean.
“I think this sort of holds everybody's feet to the fire, forces people to display it prominently in their restaurant,” Ross said. “If I go in there and I see a C or a D, I'm going to be like, what's going on here?”
Council member Bowie Hogg also said he thought it was a good idea and had seen a similar practice in New York City but not anywhere locally.
Two new studies found there are fewer foodborne illness outbreaks when health departments require restaurants to display their health inspection results, especially with letter grades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Those communities where it’s required report fewer cases of salmonella, poor inspection scores and illness outbreaks.
City Manager Trey Yelverton said Texas does not require restaurants to display their inspection certificates, but cities may require them to do it.
Currently the city requires restaurants to post their most recent health inspection or a sign letting people know how to view it upon request, according to the city's website. But the new ordinance change would require them to prominently display the sanitation grade certificate the city started providing to restaurants in November 2023.
The city currently provides every restaurant's inspection scores online. They are graded on a scale in which 100 is a perfect score and 70 is considered extremely poor, according to the city’s website.
The sanitation certificate grades are decided by this score: 91 to 100 is an A, 81 to 90 is a B, 71 to 80 is a C and any score below 70 is a F.
Ross asked city staff to prepare an ordinance for council to review before taking a vote.
Dylan Duke is KERA's summer 2025 SPJ news intern. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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