Despite a warning from the county grand jury, the Orange County Board of Supervisors declined, back in December of 2008, to impose a letter grading system designed to inform would-be diners about the health safety record of restaurants, according to the L.A. Times.
Supervisor Janet Nguyen cast the key vote against the letter grading system for restaurants. I broke the news afterwards that O.C. Supervisor Janet Nguyen’s husband, Tom Bonikowski, owned a Lee’s Sandwiches franchise in Stanton that had been fined many times by the O.C. HCA. She never reported that when she voted against the letter grade ratings – and it blew up in the press. Bonikowski has since sold the restaurant. Nguyen also collected, at the time, over $25,000 from owners of other restaurants that had been fined repeatedly for food safety violations. 
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