LOS ANGELES — After working in restaurants for 27 years, Tricia La Belle knows at least one thing is constant. 

“When the health inspector shows up, they are showing up at prime-time,” La Belle said. “They are showing up right at lunchtime.”

La Belle said in a recent interview from her Bon Vivant Market & Café in Atwater Village that her restaurant is visited by Los Angeles County Department of Public Health inspectors about every six months.

She also owns two other restaurants in Los Angeles County, another in Kern County and is president of the Greater Los Angeles Hospitality Association.

Despite La Belle’s regular visits, public health department internal documents reviewed by Spectrum News show that many restaurants don’t see the same consistency, and some go years without a single visit. The LA County Department of Public Health, which oversees restaurant inspections, said in a statement that high-risk restaurants should be visited three times a year, according to industry best practices.

High-risk restaurants are full-service eateries who typically handle raw meat or seafood and store fresh food overnight.

Health inspectors visited less than 1% of the county’s 18,143 high-risk restaurants three times during the last fiscal year, which runs from July to June, according to the department’s health internal documents. During the previous fiscal year, July 2022 to June 2023, inspectors visited about 2% of high-risk eateries three times and 12% were never visited. 

There are 214 high-risk restaurants that haven’t been visited since at least July 2020, according to the department’s documents.

It’s unclear why some restaurants, like La Belle’s, are visited regularly and some go unvisited for years.

“I have been visited aggressively,” La Belle said. “When I hear that other restaurants aren’t visited, that is rather disturbing.”

Diners can visit a public dashboard on the LA County Department of Public Health’s website that shows how often a restaurant is visited, but two restaurants Spectrum News spoke to said they had been visited more often than the website indicated. Restaurants are required to pay the public health department a yearly fee for inspections — even if they’re inspected fewer than three times or not at all. 

High-risk restaurants that seat up to 30 people pay $1,206 a year and larger restaurants that seat 151 or more people pay $1,438, according to a county fee schedule table. 

La Belle expressed frustration that restaurants are forced to pay these fees even if they aren’t inspected, especially at a time when restaurants are struggling with rising costs and seeing some people pull back out amid rising inflation. 

The Los Angeles Times counted 65 well-known local restaurants that closed last year.

The lack of inspections is tied directly to staff attrition in the public health department, according to a longtime health inspector who spoke to Spectrum News on condition of anonymity due to fears of workplace retaliation for speaking out. That inspector said managers have been unsympathetic to concerns raised by staff about increasingly heavy workloads. 

A LA County Department of Public Health spokesperson said there are currently 160 field inspectors employed by the county, with 84 job vacancies in the department. There are 23 people currently undergoing training to become field inspectors. 

“Like many employers and industries, public health has experienced increased vacancies since the beginning of the pandemic,” the spokesperson said. “These vacancies have impacted public health’s ability to meet industry best practices, including inspecting high-risk facilities three times a year.”

“Based on current staffing, we aim to inspect high-risk restaurants — those that prepare foods that may be served over several days and require cooling and reheating or serve raw meat or seafood — at least once a year and are working to ensure that goal is met,” the spokesperson said. “Nevertheless, diners should feel confident that complaints that are received are immediately investigated.” 

Some restaurants are surprised by corrections during health inspections, saying they’re unfamiliar with public health standards since inspections can be so infrequent, according to a health inspector who spoke to Spectrum News.

“It really shows us how long we have not shown up,” the inspector said. “How long it’s been that they think this is already a standard form of practice.”

Health inspectors first shared concerns publicly in February after a coworker, Heather Hughes, died by suicide at their workplace.

Mental health experts caution there is no single cause of suicide. After Hughes’ death, public health department leaders held a meeting with restaurant inspectors who expressed workplace concerns — something leadership promised to address.

But health inspectors who spoke to Spectrum News said morale is even lower six months after Hughes’ death. 

“With all the vacant sub-districts, with all the micromanaging, with all the extra non-inspection duties that we have to do in the office, it’s too much, and that is why we have so many people burning out,” the inspector said.

An LA County Department of Public Health spokesperson said the department is working with staff and their union to address workplace concerns and “support an inclusive workplace that ensures the well-being of the workforce.”

For restaurant owners like La Belle, the lack of consistent inspections meant to keep people safe should be a concern, she said.

“It’s frustrating when you don’t get visited from the health department,” she said. “I think because it’s very stressful to try and understand what is going in the mindset [of the health department] and why we aren’t getting these visits.”