Woman Who Threw Food At Chipotle Employee Must Now Work In Fast Food

I'm not someone who gets a kick out of those "public meltdown" videos that circulate online. Watching someone seemingly losing it over something inconsequential is, for me, upsetting and anxiety-inducing. I don't think people should be allowed to throw tantrums in the general direction of anyone, let alone service providers of any kind, and it's impossible to know what's going on in that person's mind as they do so. All of this to say, I was unaware of the viral video that circulated on Reddit earlier this year depicting an angry customer throwing a Chipotle burrito bowl in an employee's face.

The video shows a Chipotle customer in Parma, Ohio yelling at an employee about how her burrito bowl was prepared. After the customer angrily tosses the burrito bowl in the employee's face, an older woman who witnessed the incident demands that the customer apologize to the employee. The customer declines and storms out of the establishment; she was later detained by police.

As many parents know, there are a few options for dealing with outbursts like these. In my household, we work on rectifying the situation—whether that's literally, by cleaning up a mess, or emotionally, by repairing the relationships that have been affected by the display. And it seems that the "repair phase" is something that an Ohio judge believes in, too, because he offered a creative sentence to the woman convicted of assault.

While the Parma Municipal Court judge first sentenced the woman to 180 days in jail with 90 days suspended, he alternatively offered that the woman could suspend 60 additional days from the sentence if she worked 20 hours per week at a fast food restaurant for 60 days. This stint would have to be completed by the time she begins her jail sentence in March 2024. She agreed to the arrangement.

"This behavior is not acceptable," the judge said during the sentencing.

The woman's attorney told The New York Times that he thought the sentence was fair, and that his client has already begun to interview for fast food positions. "I was imploring the judge to not let this one day define her," he said.

The judge went on to say that he hopes this woman and others will learn a valuable lesson about how to treat other humans. Namely, don't throw stuff at people.