Peter Oshiro / You know the horror stories: Cockroach infestations, waiters who spit in the soup, sneezed-on salad bars and food poisoning from even the finest restaurants. During a time when salmonella taints everything from spinach to peanut butter and mad cow disease is just a cheeseburger away, how safe is it to eat out? The Weekly chatted with Hawaii Department of Health Sanitation Supervisor Peter Oshiro to get the lowdown on what’s happening behind the scenes in Honolulu’s kitchens.

How does a restaurant get approval to open in the first place?

For the permit process for new a establishment, we ask whether they are going to take over an existing place or build from scratch. If they take over from another restaurant, it’s a lot easier. If it’s brand new, they have to have the right kinds of structures in place for the kitchen, and meet various codes. Once they submit all the building permit forms, we review them in two or three days, max. Then, when they are ready to operate, they call us and we have to respond within 24 hours. We have to prioritize, especially for businesses that are opening.

Once a place is open, what’s the process for inspections? And how often are they conducted?

The first thing we do is, it’s never on appointment, it’s all surprising to the restaurant. First we introduce ourselves and find out who the manager or owner is and let them know why we are there. It’s either for a complaint or for a routine inspection. They can either accompany us or we can go through the inspection without them.

Walk me through the inspection itself. What are you looking for?

There are hundreds of things we tell our people to focus on. We tell them to look at personal hygiene, to be sure that hand washing is available and that it’s being used. Making sure the workers are not ill, no open cuts on the hands of those who are actually doing the prep. The next thing we look at is temperature controls, keeping cold things cold and hot things hot, refrigerating things properly and so on. We also have to take a look at the actual cooking temperatures, you know, making sure it’s hot enough for things like poultry, beef and pork. Also with temperatures, we look at cooling down.

What do you mean?

Cooling down in a way that is safe. You know, stews, soups, anything that may be prepared for banquet cooking events, like at the hotels. For anything that is prepared in a large volume, we require that it be cooled down in six hours. When you cook something thoroughly, you are creating a sterile product. If any contaminate is reintroduced, you have an ideal situation where bacteria can grow really, really quickly. Not being able to cool it down fast enough is linked to a lot of sickness.

Is that the most common violation you see?

Personal hygiene and temperature controls are the two most frequent violations. Also a big thing is cross-contamination. We have to be sure that any bloody foods like raw chicken are being kept away from salads and items that won’t be cooked. That’s also critical inside of a fridge just for storage. Real simple things like where to store what often gets overlooked. Another famous problem involves the wiping cloths. Once a cloth gets contaminated, you end up spreading it all over the place if it keeps being used.

On average, how many of these violations do you see per restaurant?

For us, violations are, it’s pretty much something that’s expected. Our rate of inspection is barely every two years, so they’re just not happening enough to ensure compliance. If it’s a major violation, we make them correct it immediately and if it’s something slightly lesser, maybe within two days. If it’s something minor like dirty floors or a missing tile here or there, we’ll give them a little longer. The only time we’ll actually fine people or suspend permits is when they’re unwilling or unable to fix the problem. The simple formula is three strikes and you’re out. And at that point we’ll start the suspension process.

How long have you been in this line of work?

Oh, about 20 years.

What’s the worst violation you’ve seen in that time?

What we see as the worst thing isn’t what the public might imagine as the worst thing. If we see a roach infestation, it’s not as bad as someone still cooling a five-gallon pot of stew that finished cooking yesterday, or a fridge temperature that’s 60 degrees rather than 40 degrees. The public will be most upset by the appearance of a rat or a roach but because they do not harbor the diseases of the past, it is truly not a contamination. If there are roaches absolutely everywhere, that may be different. But it’s still not as bad as people who are sick, or those who have open cuts or sores preparing food.

So, using last year as an example, about how many places shut down after you’ve cited them for one of those more major violations.

We don’t really keep track. We don’t find out they close. It’s not a requirement for them to tell us if they close.

Then what about the number of places you’ve had to order be shut down as a result of violations?

As far as us closing people down for violations, it’s very, very rare. I mean, looking just at the cost of getting an attorney, 99 percent of the time, they comply. Not any more than one to three restaurants per year that get suspensions or actually shut down. It’s easier for them, in a lot of ways, to comply. Sekiya’s was the most recent example, all those people reported getting food borne illnesses.

What about Salad Creations, on the corner Hotel and Bishop, were they shut down? My coworkers and I went for lunch one day and saw cockroaches everywhere. I haven’t seen them open in weeks.

No, I don’t think it was because of us.

We probably should have called you. How many calls do you get from the public?

We get about 1,200 to 1,300 calls per month.

And what should people do if they want to contact you with concerns about sanitation?

They should call our hotline. That’s the 586-8000 number.

So you must have at least a shortlist of restaurants you avoid because of what you’ve seen.

Not really because what I see, if I’m at some place just as a customer, what I see won’t tell me what’s going on. The public has no way of knowing if something is safe enough.

But what about the places you’ve inspected in the past? Is there anywhere you’d never eat again?

Not really. Even if there was, we couldn’t tell you. We see violations all the time but we can’t go around warning the public about a place if that establishment has complied.

OK, then what about places that have really impressed you with their cleanliness?

We can’t endorse anybody either!

Short of applying for a job as an inspector in your department, how can the public pick safe places to eat out?

Our inspection program will be web-based. We’re working toward getting all of our inspections online so that people can click through and see how restaurants perform. But that requires money and we don’t have any.

How else are budget constraints hurting your department?

We are in dire need of staffing and funding. We’d like to get the inspection frequency in the difficult places to at least two to three times a year. Right now we’re doing it just once every two years in some cases, that’s why we have so many problems with routine violations. On Oahu, we have approximately 5,700 food establishments. In 2008, we made 2,691 routine inspections, which resulted in 2,467 major violations. If there’s sewage on the ground, we will tell people to shut down operations right away and clean it up, but there are a lot of problems that keep coming back.

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