LF: If You Value The Reputation Of Your Restaurant, Maybe You Should Stop Serving Cops

Title: If You Value The Reputation Of Your Restaurant, Maybe You Should Stop Serving Cops
Source: TechDirt
URL Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2 ... should-stop-serving-cops.shtml
Published: Jul 17, 2018
Author: Tim Cushing
Post Date: 2018-07-19 11:33:52 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1558
Comments: 3

from the time-to-start-kicking-against-the-pricks dept

Cops lie. This is a fact. As a business owner, it is in your best interest to oust known liars from your premises, if only for liability reasons. Sure, this will result in backlash from cop supporters, but so will the alternative.

Cops have placed themselves on a plateau of humanity far above their fellow citizens. Any perceived slight becomes a reason to drape themselves in an appropriated American flag and decry the masses for failing to show them the respect they feel they have no duty to earn.

There have been several reports of low-wage fast food employees saying and/or doing mean things to cops in their restaurants. Sometimes, these things have actually happened. What officers fail to understand is that most employees of restaurants have zero respect for a majority of their customers. Add a blue uniform and an air of sanctimoniousness, and cops can easily fly up the ranks of the disrespected.

But cops don't help their own case by lying about things that happened. And even if they're not outright lies, they're severe miscontruals of the actual events. In April of 2016, an officer claimed he was drugged by a Subway employee who supposedly spiked his soda as he went through the drive-thru. Drug tests of the drink and the cop cleared Subway and its employee of any wrongdoing. It also netted the accused teen -- who was arrested and charged -- a $50,000 payout from the city of Layton, Utah.

Roughly a year after that, a Raleigh (NC) police union's Facebook post -- accusing a local restaurant of serenading officers with N.W.A.'s "Fuck tha Police" -- went viral. A review of the restaurant's CCTV footage showed this never happened. An employee apparently mouthed the words at an officer from 25 feet away. That employee quit when the investigation began. The backlash only halted when the police department itself stepped up to say the union's post was full of shit.

Raleigh Police Department Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown [...] released a statement Wednesday concurring with the owner, David Harris, and his attorney Mark O’Mara.
[...]
On Wednesday, Deck-Brown said two officers saw one employee make eye contact with them and mouth the words “F--- the Police.”
“There was no singing. There were no other employees involved,” Deck-Brown said. “Because of the subtle nature of this act, it was not witnessed by anyone else in the store.”
After looking at video, Harris and O’Mara and others could find no evidence that employees were singing at the police or even speaking with them during the nearly half-hour they were in the restaurant.

The restaurant suffered severe reputational damage. Meanwhile, the police union refused to apologize for the lies it had posted to Facebook. The restaurant may have been cleared by the Chief of Police, but the union representing the lying cops who had fabricated a story about a cop-hating restaurant downplayed its own involvement in this debacle, stating only that not "all" of the info in its original post had been "accurate."

Now, there's this: a police officer who's apparently never consumed any spices and/or a burger grilled on a grill raised social media hell because he thought some cop-hating fast food worker screwed with his food.

A police officer's complaint that a fast food burger he ordered came sprinkled with dirt created a flame-broiled Facebook sensation Wednesday before an investigation found that a seasoning mix was the likely culprit.
Fort Myers police Officer Tim McCormick posted on Facebook about a meal he was recently served at the Burger King on Cleveland Avenue at Winkler Avenue. He said that the burger looked like it had dirt on it but didn't notice it until he was down to the last bite. He then tossed the sandwich.

18,000 Facebook shares later, Officer McCormick has deleted his post. But he has yet to offer his apology for being unable to identify substances present on almost all Burger King burgers.

Given the damage officers can do when they act before all the facts are in, why would any restaurant want their business? When officers are fabricating stories and misidentifying rare substances like, um... black pepper, why would any business owner want to serve such supremely risky customers?

Sure, not every cop is going to lodge a bullshit complaint because he didn't like how a restaurant employee eyeballed him during service, but why roll the dice? Officers and their unions can do an incredible amount of damage to small businesses in a short period of time. When the facts do come out, they simply delete posts and walk away from wreckage they've left behind without so much as an apology. And if they do find themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit for their actions, it's the taxpayers left footing the bill -- a group of unwilling lenders that includes the same small business owners victimized by the officers' lies and exaggerations.

Play it safe, restaurant owners. Invite officers to start making their own meals at home where the only parties likely to receive collateral damage for food and service-based complaints will be officers' spouses and children. It just makes financial sense.

Given the horrible things done to officer's food, why would any cop give their business to a restaurant?

from the time-to-start-kicking-against-the-pricks dept