Gov. Mark R. Warner announced online information is now available on inspections of restaurants and other food service facilities in the state. Local health departments throughout Virginia conduct more than 60,000 unannounced restaurant inspections a year to ensure consumer health and safety. The reports are now available online through the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Environmental Health Services.

"We've been working hard in Virginia to make government accessible by computer," said Gov. Warner. "Restaurant inspections are a perfect example of the useful information Virginia government collects, that we can share with citizens in a free and convenient manner. E-government is a great way to give citizens value for their tax dollars and more knowledge about what government does for them."

All Virginia restaurants are required by law to have a permit from the Virginia Department of Health. The facility can attain a permit after a review of facility plans and menu and assuring, by inspection, compliance with food safety standards and practices. Routine inspections during subsequent operation of the food service assess the operator's success in assuring that routine practices are conducted in a safe and sanitary manner.

"The mission of the VDH program is to protect the health of all of the dining public. If deficiencies are observed during these routine inspections, they are described in an inspection report with reference to the relevant section of the Virginia Food Regulations," said Robert Hicks, Director of the Office of Environmental Health Services. Such deficiencies are typically classified as either "critical," posing a direct or immediate threat to the safety of the food being served, or "non-critical," representing a failure of cleaning or maintenance.

"Although we hope these foodservice operations will have no critical violations it is unrealistic to expect that a complex, full-service food operation can routinely avoid any violations," Hicks said.

Consumers should know that any inspection report is a "snapshot" of the day and time of the inspection. Restaurants may have fewer or more violations on a different day. An inspection conducted on any given day may not be representative of the overall, long-term cleanliness of an establishment. Consumers should also consider that although inspection violations are recorded, they are often corrected on the spot prior to the inspector leaving the establishment.

Only inspections conducted after January 1, 2003 will be available on the site. Consumers can expect a 7-day delay between the time an inspection report is entered into the database and the time when its details will appear on the Web site.

The Office of Environmental Health Services contracted with British Columbia-based HealthSpace Integrated Solutions to create the new comprehensive database and website.