14 THE COURIER SUN • FEBRUARY 9, 2017 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com Food carts & trucks should be graded for safety: Koslowitz BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@qns.com @robbpoz Every restaurant in New York City is graded for meeting Health Department food safety standards — and food carts and trucks should be evaluated the same way, according to Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz. The Forest Hills-based legislator introduced on Wednesday, Feb. 1, a bill (Intro. 1456) mandating that the city Health Department inspect and issue letter grades from A to C to the operators of mobile food vendors selling everything from hot dogs to halal food, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches to Belgian waffles, and many other edible items. The cart owners would be required to prominently display the letter grades on their carts and trucks for customers to see before ordering. “You go to a food cart and you really don’t know its sanitary condition,” Koslowitz said in a statement. “Our current grading system works well for restaurants, and I believe it would be good for the city food carts as well. The consumer has a right to know to what degree a cart is in compliance. This way, the public can make an informed choice as to whether to eat at a particular food cart.” The city’s restaurant grading system has been in place since 2010. Health Department inspectors conduct food safety checks at 24,000 eateries across the five boroughs annually and grade each location for compliance with regulations on practices including food handling, food temperature, personal hygiene, facility and equipment maintenance and vermin control. Points are added to a restaurant’s score based on the severity of the violation discovered; lower scores indicate that a restaurant is in greater compliance with food safety regulations. Restaurants are given A grades if it scored 13 or fewer points in an inspection; a B grade for scoring between 14 and 27 points; and a C grade if it scored 28 or more points. According to the Health Department, a restaurant has two chances to earn an A in every inspection cycle. Restaurant grades must be posted on the front window or door of a restaurant in plain sight of any visitor; the public can also see an establishment’s grades on the Health Department’s online listing. Two other Queens City Council members — Barry Grodenchik and Rory Lancman — have signed onto the mobile food vendor grading bill as co-sponsors. The legislation has been referred to the City Council Health Committee for further consideration. “It’s simply about consumer protection, forewarned is forearmed,” Koslowitz concluded. TYING THE KNOT IN QUEENS CAN BREAK THE BANK BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI smonteverdi@qns.com @smont76 If you’re a couple in Queens looking to tie the knot in the “World’s Borough,” you’d better be ready to spend some big money for that special day. The 2016 Real Weddings Study from The Knot reported that it costs an average of $59,027 to get married in the outer boroughs of New York City — placing fifth on the list of the most expensive places to wed in the country. The report found that wedding festivities in Queens cost $23,698 more than the national average, which clocks in at $35,329. There is some good news for couples looking to host their big day in Queens: it is still substantially cheaper to wed in the outer boroughs than it is in Manhattan or Long Island. In 2016, the average wedding held in Long Island cost $67,831, and in Manhattan, a remarkable $78,464. The thriftiest of couples may want to consider Arkansas, Utah and Montana, which were the top three most affordable places for a wedding in 2016. Each destination had an average cost of under $21,000. The study also revealed some interesting changes in wedding traditions and preferences nationwide. Last year, the overall wedding guest count dropped, but money spent per guest increased, suggesting a quality-over-quantity mindset for today’s couples. Access to gadgets and gizmos also appears to be increasingly important to today’s couples. Twenty-two percent of couples surveyed incorporated some type of technology into their wedding day festivities, including drone photography and videography, live-streaming, GoPro cameras and charging stations for guests’ phones. Additionally, custom guest entertainment has more than tripled, with photo booths, games, musical performances and fireworks topping the list of favorites. The Knot‘s 2016 Real Weddings Survey collected responses from nearly 13,000 U.S. couples married between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2016. Surveyed couples were at a variety of income levels and attested they were 18 or older and had a wedding in 2016. All overall wedding cost averages exclude honeymoon expenses. Lady Gaga is coming to Queens this summer as her world tour stops at Citi Field BY EMILY DAVENPORT edavenport@qns.com @QNS Following Lady Gaga’s amazing performance at the Super Bowl 51 halftime show, the New York Mets announced that the Manhattan native will be bringing her upcoming “Joanne” World Tour to Citi Field in Flushing this August. The 48-date tour supports her fifth studio album, “Joanne,” which claimed the number one spot on the Billboard 200 chart one week after its release. The upcoming tour is Lady Gaga’s first major tour since her ‘Cheek to Cheek’ tour with jazz legend Tony Bennett, which ran from 2014 to 2015. The show at Citi Field begins at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 28, with doors opening at 6 p.m. Tickets will go on sale on Monday, Feb. 13, with a pre-sale for Mets account holders on Friday, Feb. 10. Parking is available for $35 and bus/limo parking is available for $80. Photo: REX/Shutterstock
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