When you go out to eat, you assume the food you’re eating is safe. And in order to guarantee that, the Maricopa County Environmental Services Department conducts restaurant inspections all the time, measuring everything from the temperature of a restaurant’s refrigerator to how long its employees wash their hands.

Food operators get a grade from the county after those inspections so you can easily tell if they’re passing or failing. But a new analysis from the Arizona Republic found that grading system is entirely voluntary — and that has allowed thousands of repeat offenders to avoid getting bad grades.

Agnel Philip crunched the numbers on this one and joined The Show to talk more about it.

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