Added statewide restaurant safety training to begin in Beaufort County

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control is hosting additional training sessions for restaurants across the state, starting with Beaufort and Bluffton this October.

The decision to begin in Beaufort County is because a state representative contacted DHEC after reading about an uptick in low sanitation grades at Beaufort County restaurants in The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.

The grades measure establishments’ compliance with state food safety and sanitation rules.

Rep. Shannon Erickson (R-Beaufort) was surprised to learn that Beaufort County had the most C-grade restaurants in 2016 in the entire state, outpacing even Charleston County, which has more than two times as many restaurants.

The newspapers’ investigation also found that in all of 2014 and 2015, only nine C’s — the lowest possible grade — were given in the county. Conversely, in just the first six months of 2016, 16 restaurants received C’s. The number of B’s nearly quadrupled during that same time period as well.

Erickson thought the state agency was rigorously inspecting restaurants, but could be doing more to educate them.

“They have the enforcement arm,” Erickson said. “But they also have the responsibility arm that these folks have proper education and service and training.”

DHEC spokesman Jim Beasley said the decision to begin training sessions in Bluffton had more to do with Erickson than with the newspapers’ findings.

“(Erickson’s) support of this educational effort — as well as her interest in keeping the public safe when eating out through targeted training — is a good reason to start in the Bluffton and Beaufort areas,” Beasley said in an email Monday.

Most of the Beaufort County restaurants receiving C’s were first-time offenders. Owners and managers cited changes to the state’s food code and tough, new inspectors as the disruption in their years’ long records of straight-A grades.

All restaurants that have been downgraded by a letter or have consecutive critical violations are invited, but attendance is not mandatory.

Erickson took interest in the papers’ investigation because she had already been following DHEC inspections of another mainstay in Beaufort County’s economy, the fishing, shrimping and oyster industry.

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 10:45 AM with the headline "Added statewide restaurant safety training to begin in Beaufort County."