How to run script with Django settings in subdirectory without relative project path

I want to execute the seeds.py script located in restaurants_project/scripts/. This seed file would populate my database with restaurant records based on the CSV data within the same folder by using my Django model Restaurant. I've found that the only way to include the project settings (i.e. restaurant_project.settings) along with my necessary models was to sys.path.append('MY_PROJECTS_RELATIVE_PATH') in the seeds file. I obviously don't want to do this in production (or do i?) so what's the best way to include those settings without getting the following ImportError:

ImportError: Could not import settings 'restaurants_project.settings' (Is it on sys.path? Is there an import error in the settings file?): No module named 'restaurants_project'

Directory Tree:

|___restaurants_project
| |______init__.py
| |______pycache__
| | |______init__.cpython-34.pyc
| | |____settings.cpython-34.pyc
| |____settings.py
| |____urls.py
| |____wsgi.py
|____restaurants
| |______init__.py
| |______pycache__
| | |______init__.cpython-34.pyc
| | |____admin.cpython-34.pyc
| | |____models.cpython-34.pyc
| |____admin.py
| |____migrations
| | |______init__.py
| |____models.py
| |____tests.py
| |____views.py
|____scripts
| |______init__.py
| |______pycache__
| | |______init__.cpython-34.pyc
| |____restaurant_inspections_2014.csv
| |____seeds.py
| |____unique_restaurant_ids.txt

seeds.py:

import os, sys
os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'restaurants_project.settings')

import django
django.setup()

import csv
csvfile = open('restaurant_inspections_2014.csv')
reader = csv.reader(csvfile)
headers = next(reader, None)

for row in reader:
  print(row)
  import pdb; pdb.set_trace()