New York City is following in the footsteps of Los Angeles County. In July 2010, The New York City Department of Health is planning on rolling out its new A, B, C Letter Grading System to score restaurants in the city on their food safety program which includes food protection, employee health and hygiene, physical cleanliness, as well as pest control.
But restaurateurs, have no fear, this is no big deal! Los Angeles has been giving letter grades to restaurants for over 12 years. The program not only increased compliance with the food safety regulations and laws within Los Angeles County restaurants, it also resulted in a decrease in the number of food-borne disease related hospitalizations drastically since the program was started (http://www.cspinet.org/dirtydining/HospitalizationsStudy.pdf).