A green placard means the restaurant passed inspection, yellow indicates there were a few problems and red means the facility had to be shut down. Alicia Enriquez with the county’s Environmental Health Division says compliance is better than expected.   

"We anticipated that we would be issuing yellow placards to 20% of our facilities and that figure is actually 12%." 

But Johnnise Downs with the California Restaurant Association says the yellow placards are scaring customers away. 

"When they see yellow they stop, and they don’t patronize those restaurants. So that concern is still valid for us."

Sacramento County is the first county in California to use the color coded signs. You can see full restaurant inspection reports on the county’s website.