ROSWELL, Ga. — A Roswell restaurant owner reached out to 11Alive after realizing his establishment has not had a health inspection in over a year for the second time in a row. Daniel Dailey's business is not the only restaurant waiting, according to the Fulton County Public Health inspection page.
As of Wednesday, it's been one year and one day since Johnny’s Pizza on West Crossville Road has had a health inspection. Dailey, the owner and operator, said the unannounced inspections are crucial to keep the industry in check and keep customers healthy.
"I talked to another restaurant owner in downtown Roswell, and they still haven’t had their inspection. The last time they had theirs was the same time last year, December, and the time before that was two years before that. So two inspections in three years isn’t really them doing their job," he said.
We last spoke with Dailey one year ago after he alerted 11Alive his restaurant -- and others in the area -- had gone 18 months without a county health inspection. Seven days after that story ran, he said the health department showed up to inspect.
Now, 12 months have passed without another inspection, and he fears he may be waiting just as long.
"Lots of businesses write checks every year to the health department, like we’re required to, and seems like they just put the money in their pocket, not paying anybody to do the job," he said.
When 11Alive searched county records, we found a number of other restaurants around Roswell and Alpharetta that also appear to have not had an inspection in at least a year.
The Food and Drug Administration states restaurants should be randomly inspected at least once every six months to prevent foodborne illnesses.
"The bad operators need to know that they’re not doing the right job. The people need to know if restaurants aren’t doing their job. I’m not worried about us, but if I’m going to eat somewhere else, I want to know that they’re following the rules," Dailey added.
11Alive reached out to the county to check back up. Fulton County Director of Environmental Health Dr. Brandon Leftwich said they try to follow that rule, especially with restaurants receiving a bad inspection score.
"If a restaurant has a good track record list, they continuously get A’s back to back to back, we could reduce the amount of inspections that particular restaurant receives and focus our attention on more struggling restaurants out there," he said.
He said while the county is still trying to recover from a backlog spurred by short staffing and high turnover during the pandemic, they’ve come a long way.
He said last year, his department was down 12 inspectors and since then they've been able to hire double that amount.
"We were about 47% behind on inspections this time last year. I’m pleased to say now that we’re currently at 12%, and that’s been surely due to us hiring more staff. Turnover is not high, so our guys are really working hard to get these establishments inspected," Leftwich added.
The division is in charge of inspecting more than 7,000 establishments countywide.
He anticipates that at the rate they’ve been working this year, they’ll be fully caught up in a couple of months.
"Even with the roster that I currently have, there's still a lot. What people have to keep in mind is that we don't only do restaurant inspections, we also do swimming pool inspections for public settings. We also do hotels and things of that nature. So it definitely creates more of a workload for that one person and naturally it'll create backlogs," Leftwich added.
To learn more about the Fulton County Board of Health food inspection services, click here.