Stamford Restaurant Ratings: First Appear Useful, Then Useless, Then Useful Again!

As you know if you read the Stamford Advocate, the city is now posting its restaurant inspection results online.
Below 80 is one hat: poor compliance!
80-96 is two hats and acceptable compliance, and 90-100 is three hats, best compliance. The overlap from 90-96 has to do with the type of violation- click on graphic to right for more details, or see Advocate article.
Sounds like a great idea, but when I read further, here is the problem: the patron has no idea if the restaurant got a poor rating for something important, like food being stored improperly, or something smaller, like a back door being left open. See quote from article:
Sometimes the smallest circumstance can trigger a low score and poor compliance rating, managers said. A March inspection at Bennett's Steak and Fish on Spring Road left the establishment with a one-hat rating, denoting poor compliance. A ceiling tile was missing and the back door was open, manager Matt Salvatore said.
"It was such little things," Salvatore said. "But again, coming from someone living in Stamford, I like knowing when my family goes out to eat, every restaurant is being dealt with that way."

I mean, first of all, close your back door because flies can get in, but second, I agree with the dude. Something not so egregious can make your restaurant look like a total one-hat dump. Now, the ratings seem useless.
However, I do appreciate how motivating that one-hat possibility will be to make sure all details are squared away. Therefore, these at-a-second-glance useless ratings are, at a third glance, probably a great idea. As the article says, The site shows many local eateries that turned poor scores into excellent ones, such as Capriccio Cafe on Bedford Street, Amore Restaurant on Hope Street and Coromandel Cuisine of India on Broad Street.

Go, Stamford! There is nothing I like more than seeing people and places strong-armed into following rules that protect their patron's tummies.

The ratings are actually kinda complex- like, you can't read it once and fully understand and remember the system (especially if your baby is crabbing in his crib while you are blogging about it). Quote:
Stamford used the beaming face icon because the 100-point scale can be misleading, city health inspector Ronald Miller warned. Restaurants with a score below 80, or a single four-point violation automatically fail, so a restaurant with a score of 96 could have failed its inspection, he said.
On the 62-item inspection sheet, there are 10 possible four-point violations, such as food storage at improper temperature and inadequate sanitation practices. If unchecked, four-point violations can lead to food-borne illness.

I mean, geez, all those numbers. OK, must go take care of tired baby!