Last summer, the New York City Board of Health began requiring all restaurants to post the letter-grade results of their latest health inspections. But a large number of eateries with non-A marks opted either to not post their grade or post it in a spot where no one could see it.

Restaurants are required to post their letter grades within five feet of the entrance and four-to-six feet above ground, but 100 eateries couldn’t follow these instructions. The remaining 700 restaurants didn’t post them at all.

Not surprisingly, more than half of the restaurants caught trying to sweep their grade under the rug had received the lowest grade of “C,” which means they were probably trying to sweep a lot of other things under the rug.

Restaurants caught violating the rules for posting grades face up to $1,000 in fines.

The city’s deputy commissioner for environmental health tells the NY Post there is no way restaurant owners simply forget about having to post their grade: “If it was really about ignorance of the law, we’d expect proportionate results.”

A lawyer representing one of the 23 grade-A restaurants caught failing to post the grade says that restaurants that pass inspection, “should have a right not to have an ‘A’ in the window.”

The 800 restaurants caught violating the posting rules only represent about 4% of the NYC restaurants that have received grades since the program started last July.

Eateries busted keeping ‘C’-crets [NY Post]

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