The New York City Board of Health will be holding a public hearing in which inputs will be taken from people about a proposal to publicly grade New York City restaurants as A, B, or C based on their sanitary conditions.

Frequent inspection would be done of restaurants that would receive Bs and Cs than those meeting the highest standards for food safety and getting an A.

City health commissioner Dr Thomas Farley said the health department inspects 24,000 restaurants each year monitoring them and checking whether they fulfilled the city's Health Code.

With present standards, about 30 percent of the city's restaurants would qualify for A grades, 40 percent Bs and 26 percent Cs.

"Many restaurants in New York have excellent food safety practices, but too many operate at the margin. Customers should know how closely restaurants were following health department standards for sanitation before they sit down to eat. Restaurants respond when they do so and that's good for everyone," Farley said in a statement.

On February 5, 2010 a public hearing on the new restaurant grading system will take place and the Board of Health is expected to vote on the measure in March 2010.