Guelph to put salon, tattoo parlour health inspections online

Steve Baker works on tattooing a customer at Prestige Tattoos in Guelph, Ont., on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013.

Like many municipalities, the City of Guelph posts results from public health inspections of restaurants on the internet for all to see.

But officials in the Royal City plan to take things one step further, and add results of inspections at other facilities – like barbershops, tanning salons and tattoo parlours – to the online list.

“The decision seemed to be a natural flow from having our food inspections online,” says Janice Walters, the city’s manager of infectious diseases.

Guelph’s public health unit frequently receives calls from the public asking for opinions on which facilities are safe, Walters says, suggesting that there is an appetite for the information.

City health inspectors need to be given the equipment to file reports in a standardized way that could automatically be transferred to the website before the program can get rolling.

Due to uncertainty over exactly when that will happen, Walters says she’s hopeful the program can start by January 2014, but hasn’t etched that date in stone.

“There are some financial costs associated with this move and so we are looking at where we get those resources,” she says.

Inspectors making their rounds have already been informing businesses that online reporting is in the pipeline.

Tracey Cripps, owner of Tranquil Body Solutions, says she’s in favour of the move and welcomes the easier access to reports on her business and her competitors.

“I don’t have anything to hide, and I think the public should know which ones are good to go to and which ones aren’t,” she says.

“There’s so many issues you can come across in places that don’t clean tools or don’t sterilize.”

At Prestige Tattoo, owner Steve Baker has a similar opinion.

“I find the public has a hard time finding a lot of information about the tattoo shops, so having it in a public forum like that seems to be very relevant,” he says.