How Las Vegas Demerits Turn Into the Grade on the Door

Las Vegas restaurants post a letter, but the letter is arithmetic. The Southern Nevada Health District assesses demerits for each violation, adds them up, and the total is the grade. An “A” grade means “the establishment has earned between 0-10 demerits on their last inspection.” A “B” is 11 to 20, a “C” is 21 to 40, and above that the establishment closes.

The health district covers all of Clark County, not just the city — Henderson, North Las Vegas, Mesquite, Laughlin and the Strip are inspected as one jurisdiction.

What five demerits buys

The district’s inspection form is organised by weight. Its first section is headed: “The Priority Items listed below are assessed 5 demerits for each violation.” Those items are the short list of things that cause foodborne illness directly:

• Handwashing, glove use, and no bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat foods, plus food-handler health restrictions
• Food from an approved commercial source, with required labels and parasite destruction
• Time/temperature control for safety food received, cooked, reheated and cooled at proper temperatures
• Hot and cold running water from an approved source
• No imminently dangerous cross connection, adequate backflow prevention, and proper disposal of wastewater and sewage
• Food wholesome: not spoiled, contaminated or adulterated
• Operating within the parameters of the health permit, including any HACCP plan or waiver

A second section covers Priority Foundation Items, “assessed 3 demerits for each violation” — the supporting conditions, such as stocked and accessible handwashing sinks, working backflow devices, and food labelled and dated as required.

This site counts whether a routine inspection recorded at least one violation from the 5-demerit class. Two of them are enough to cost an establishment its A on their own, which is what makes that class the meaningful line in the Clark County file.

The hazards that stop an inspection

Above the scoring sections, the form carries a separate list headed “Imminent Health Hazards — Notify SNHD and Cease Operations as Directed.” These are not scored; they stop the operation. The listed conditions are interruption of electrical service; no potable or hot water; “gross unsanitary occurrences or conditions including pest infestation”; sewage or liquid waste not disposed of in an approved manner; lack of adequate refrigeration; lack of adequate employee toilets and handwashing facilities; a suspected foodborne illness outbreak; and “other condition or circumstance that may endanger public health.”

So a 5-demerit violation on this site is a serious finding, and it is still several steps short of the district shutting a kitchen down.

What happens after a downgrade

A restaurant that loses its A does not simply carry a B. In the district’s words, one “downgraded to a ‘B’ or ‘C’ shall be re-inspected to ensure correction of violations,” with fees due “within 10 business days of the downgrade inspection” and the re-inspection conducted “after 15 business days, as determined by the inspector,” or sooner if the operator asks and pays. “Failure to pass the re-inspection will lead to an additional downgrade and/or closure.”

That re-inspection is why this site counts routine inspections only. A file that includes the follow-ups counts establishments that already failed once, a second and sometimes third time, and measures the enforcement process rather than the kitchens.

Reading the Clark County figures

Across 2023–2026, 44.8% of 25,250 routine inspections of Clark County restaurants recorded at least one 5-demerit violation. Resist the urge to hold that number up against another city’s on this site. Clark County’s 5-demerit class spans eight broad priority items, from handwashing to cooling to approved sources, so it catches more than a jurisdiction whose counted event is narrower. A higher rate here is a fact about the form, not about the kitchens — which is why no figure on this site is ever compared across two places.

15 chains have enough counted inspections to be charted, and 13 sit clearly below the county rate. Clark County charts a lot of chains on relatively few inspections each, so the ranges run wide — treat any two overlapping bars as tied.

Starbucks has the most inspections on file, 494, putting it between 14.5% and 21.2%. Part of that distance from the county rate is the menu rather than the management: the 5-demerit list is dominated by cooking, cooling, holding and raw handling, and a coffee counter does less of all four than a kitchen cooking to order.

Sources

• Southern Nevada Health District, Food Establishment Inspection report form — the 5-demerit Priority Items, the 3-demerit Priority Foundation Items, and the imminent health hazard list.
• Southern Nevada Health District, What does the grade card mean? — the demerit ranges for A, B and C, and the re-inspection rules after a downgrade.
• Chain figures are computed from the same committed snapshot as the Las Vegas page; the method is on the methodology page.

Informational only. This is a reading of public inspection records, not food-safety, legal or dining advice, and no figure here is a grade of any individual restaurant. A figure describes what inspectors recorded across a set of visits in one place over one period — not a brand, and not the location near you.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Against the Southern Nevada Health District's inspection report form and published grading rules.