Rockland County found at least one critical, or “red,” violation in 466 of 1,502 routine restaurant inspections (31.0%) between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026, above the 27.1% rate for New York outside New York City. One item stands out: food left out at room temperature (item 5C) was cited in 14.8% of Rockland inspections, twice the state rate. Rockland inspectors also write more minor items; only 4.3% of inspections were completely clean.
All figures are our tallies from the New York State Department of Health dataset Food Service Establishment Inspections: Beginning 2005 (rows updated October 22, 2026, inspections through October 16).
| Rockland County, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 | Result |
|---|---|
| Routine restaurant inspections | 1,502 at 977 restaurants |
| At least one red violation | 466 (31.0%); state outside NYC 27.1% |
| Two or more red violations | 8.3%; state 10.6% |
| Room-temperature storage (5C) | 14.8%; state 7.0% |
| No violation of any kind | 4.3%; state 24.2% |
| Return visit within 60 days of a red | 56.0% (median 28 days) |
Finding a Rockland County inspection report
The Rockland County Department of Health permits and inspects more than 1,000 food service establishments, including restaurants, cafeterias, food trucks and food stands, according to its Food and Recreation page. Supermarkets and convenience stores fall under the state Department of Agriculture and Markets instead.
- Go to Food Service Establishment: Last Inspection, the state page the county points to for inspection results.
- Choose ROCKLAND in the County filter and enter the restaurant’s name or street.
- For earlier visits at an open restaurant, filter the full inspection history on its facility code. The county says the state data covers active facilities from 2005 on and is updated monthly.
- For records before 2005, for a restaurant that has closed, or for a previous owner, the county asks for a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request.
The county also notes that owners can dispute violations at an administrative hearing before the Commissioner of Health, so a listed violation may still be under appeal.
Room-temperature storage leads Rockland’s red items
| Red item | What it covers | Rockland | State outside NYC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5C | Food left at room temperature instead of under refrigeration | 14.8% | 7.0% |
| 5E | Not enough working refrigeration to hold food at 45°F | 7.4% | 4.0% |
| 6B | Not enough hot-holding equipment | 3.4% | 1.2% |
| 1D | Dented, swollen or leaking cans | 2.9% | 1.3% |
| 1H | Food from an unapproved source, spoiled or adulterated | 2.7% | 3.6% |
5C appeared in about half of Rockland’s red inspections (222 of 466). Among the 28 New York counties outside the city with at least 300 routine inspections, Rockland ranked third on this item, after Monroe (20.3%) and Sullivan (17.2%). Hot-holding equipment (6B) and dented or swollen cans (1D) are also cited at more than twice the state rate. Item numbers are defined in our New York critical violation code guide.
Rockland writes more blue items, including posters and training
A Rockland inspection listed 3.2 blue (noncritical) items on average. Four items show the difference:
- 15A floors, walls and ceilings: 44.0% of inspections, against 26.2% statewide.
- 16 miscellaneous, choking poster and training: 36.2%, against 11.7%.
- 15B lighting and ventilation, including dirty hoods: 29.3%, against 14.2%.
- 12C plumbing and sinks: 27.4%, against 11.7%.
Item 16 covers paperwork-type rules such as the required choking poster and staff training. Rockland runs its own two-day food handler course for current county permit holders, listed on the same county page, and enforces the Rockland County Sanitary Code, Article VI, alongside the state code.
Red violation rates across Rockland’s five towns
| Town | Routine inspections | With a red |
|---|---|---|
| Stony Point | 64 | 37.5% |
| Clarkstown | 454 | 31.7% |
| Ramapo | 375 | 31.5% |
| Orangetown | 472 | 29.4% |
| Haverstraw | 134 | 28.4% |
Rockland’s rate is high across its five towns, with a spread of nine points. Villages such as Nyack, Spring Valley and Suffern are counted under their towns, as the permits record them.
Return visits after a red violation in Rockland County
After 261 of the 466 red inspections (56.0%), the county returned within 60 days, at a median of 28 days, and 80.8% of those visits found no red. Westchester returned after 66.9% at a median of 8 days; see our Westchester County results.
Rockland’s next-inspection pattern is unusual. After a red, the next routine inspection had a red 40.6% of the time; after a clean inspection, 35.2%. Statewide those figures are 46.4% and 20.7%. A clean visit in Rockland says less about the next one than it does elsewhere, possibly because 5C is cited so often across the county. The same red item came back in 17.8% of cases.
For the state picture, see our New York State results by county; for nearby Dutchess County, see our Dutchess County results; for Orange County to the north, see our Orange County results by town.
How we counted
We kept routine inspections (type “Inspection”) of food service establishment permits in Rockland County dated October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, one per facility per date. Item rates are shares of all routine inspections. The dataset lists active facilities, so restaurants that closed during the year drop out. A return visit is any later inspection of the same facility within 60 days. Fourteen of the inspections are state park concessions, such as Bear Mountain Inn and Rockland Lake State Park, inspected by the State’s Middletown District Office; the county Department of Health’s own inspections alone come to 30.8% with a red and 4.2% fully clean. To report a problem, use the state food complaint page.
New York State Department of Health data and Rockland County Department of Health pages checked October 25, 2026.