Caught on video: Checkers workers admit to spitting in food
Several workers at a Checkers restaurant in Philadelphia have been fired after posting a video of themselves talking about spitting in customers’ food and other unsanitary practices.
But one of the men featured in the video, comedian and hip-hop artist Richard Benson, said that the whole video was supposed to be a publicity stunt that just went horribly wrong.
In the video, Benson can be seen lighting up a cigarette as the workers discuss not wearing gloves to prepare food and threaten to spit in customer’s food. At one point, Benson claims that he would “just wash the floor with these buns” if he had to prepare food for police.
Although the video was deleted almost as soon as it was posted, it cropped up again on social media from people who had recorded it, and several of the Checkers workers have since been fired, even though Benson insists that they never did any of the things described in the video.
“I be doing little publicity stunts,” Benson told NBC 10. “There wasn’t anything going on that I was saying but I was saying it because I knew it would draw attention.”
“I wouldn’t do that to my community,” he added. “Now a lot of people don’t have jobs because of me and I feel bad. Because it was all a joke.”
He then went on to reassure Checkers customers that their food was safe, saying, “Nothing negative went down in that store. Whoever ordered that day, your food was properly cooked, properly made, properly prepared. We didn’t do nothing. We didn’t contaminate nothing. Nothing negative.”
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As for the Checkers franchise, the restaurant has been shut down until it is “fully sanitized and re-inspected,” and the company has said that it will be re-training its staff.
“The behavior of these employees does not meet our high standards for food preparation and guest service, and does not represent the thousands of Checkers employees who do an outstanding job every day,” a Checkers spokesperson said.
“As soon as we became aware of the post, we immediately contacted the franchisee, who proactively closed the restaurant late last night. The employees involved will be terminated, the restaurant will be fully sanitized and re-inspected before it reopens, and all of the team members will be fully retrained.”
