Hundreds of Restaurateurs Sound Off on Sanitary Inspections The New York City Council will announce Wednesday that nearly 1,000 restaurant operators have responded, after only two weeks, to a Web survey seeking their views about the city health department's new letter-grading system for food safety. As of Tuesday, 965 responses had been submitted - a sign "that we've hit a nerve," said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker. We're getting surveys from every borough, and from very diverse neighborhoods. Opinions expressed in the responses will be revealed in Council hearings scheduled for late February or early March. Responding to what the speaker said was "a wave of complaints" about letter grading, the Council posted a questionnaire on its Web site (www.council.nyc.gov) asking the city's 24,000 restaurateurs to share information about their experiences with inspectors and administrative tribunals, and the cost of fines and inspection consultants. Established 18 months ago, the letter-grading system has been a success, the health department has said, because the specter of a B or C rating has motivated 77 percent of the city's restaurants to attain A grades. Susan Craig, a department spokeswoman, said a survey last summer showed that 90 percent of New Yorkers approved of letter grading. "We think it's making a real difference" in kitchen cleanliness, she added. She questioned the methodology and the validity of the Council questionnaire, which asks for but does not require the names of respondents. "The survey has no method of confirming that a participant is actually a restaurant, nor does it ensure that an entrant fills out only one submission," Ms. Craig said. The results - good or bad - will have negligible value. But Zoe Tobin, a Council spokeswoman, responded that "there is a vetting system in place" that checks for duplication and fraud. "We felt that anonymity was important to encourage candid responses," she said. Ms. Quinn declined to reveal the content of the comments submitted thus far, though restaurateurs have complained publicly that the new system has brought more frequent inspections and higher fines. "When we finish our analysis, we'll use the surveys to set the agenda for the hearing," she said, adding: "We think it's great to fight food-borne illnesses, and it's great that letter-grading is so transparent - customers can see the grades. But our goal is to make the system fair. We are hoping to learn from operators whether they think inspectors are over-visiting restaurants, and whether there are too many fines. The Council has oversight of city agencies, Ms. Quinn said, and "we have a lot of regulatory and legislative authority when it comes to the Department of Health." The Council has sometimes endorsed stricter inspection. After a 1998 newspaper exposé of dirty restaurants and lax inspection practices, the Council introduced legislation to increase inspections from once to twice a year, and to double fines for violations. The restaurateurs" trade association, which has consistently opposed the department's letter-grading system, has applauded the coming hearing, and has urged city restaurateurs to complete the online survey, since the new system "can embarrass hard-working business owners," said Andrew Rigie, executive vice president of the New York City Chapters of the New York State Restaurant Association. The trade group has reached out to notify the city's ethnic-restaurant operators about the survey, which is available in seven languages: English, Spanish. Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and Haitian Creole. "We hope that inspections can be less punitive, and place more emphasis on food safety education," Mr. Rigie said.