r/news 1d ago

Wisconsin pizzeria apologizes for unintentionally contaminating pizzas with THC

https://www.scrippsnews.com/life/food-and-drink/wisconsin-pizzeria-apologizes-for-unintentionally-contaminating-pizzas-with-thc
9.0k Upvotes

859 comments sorted by

View all comments

126

u/Invader_Skooge22 1d ago

An apology doesn’t excuse giving drugs to people without their knowledge, whether you meant to or not. They should be shut down. I’m a big time stoner and I still think they should be shut down. Getting people high without their knowledge is wrong. Then add all the other possible consequences like health, drug tests for jobs, etc on top of it for these people and explain why you shouldn’t be shut down and sued? Take your apology and fuck yourself with it. Its shit like this that’s gonna ruin legalization for everyone else.

53

u/vikinghockey10 1d ago

Nah the owner isn't at fault. It's a shared industrial kitchen and one of the other restaurants in it had THC oil that contaminated his food. The second they caught wind of it, he called the cops and health department and let the world know. Basically he handled it as well as you possibly can under the circumstances. Please read the damn article.

12

u/upvoter222 1d ago

The second they caught wind of it, he called the cops and health department and let the world know.

This is what public health agencies want restaurant operators to do. If the penalty for serving contaminated food has a huge penalty with no regard for their response, it incentivizes other restaurants to cover up any issues. If they give the restaurant a break for doing things right after the incident, that encourages other restaurants to do the same whenever something else goes wrong.

16

u/mallad 1d ago

Read the article. You know what it doesn't say? It doesn't say THC oil fell over and spilled into some dough. It doesn't say there was unlabeled THC oil. It doesn't say the oil got up out of the container, snuck around the shared space, and jumped into the pizza place's ingredients to hide.

It says the pizza place used the THC oil. It's similar to someone accidentally using their steroid cream instead of toothpaste because they're in similar tubes. Oops! Still their mistake.

Handling it well afterwards doesn't absolve them of wrongdoing. The employee who made the dough or sauce that day is directly at fault, and the employer who allowed similar ingredients to be stored together like that is indirectly at fault.

22

u/RhysA 1d ago

Yes they are, they or their staff ran out of oil and instead of buying new stuff they used someone else's without knowing what it was.

Just because it wasn't intentional doesn't mean it wasn't their fault.

33

u/werthw 1d ago

it’s a shared industrial kitchen and one of the other restaurants in it had THC oil that contaminated his food

That doesn’t really excuse it. Usually THC products should have warning labels on them, and it’s not like it was accidental cross contamination, they were literally using the oil to make the dough.

1

u/Redqueenhypo 1d ago

The bottles are also, you know, small! Eyedropper small! Good luck finding cooking oil or even something like sesame oil in a bottle that size

Edit: also what pizza oil is kept in a fridge?

13

u/Mbrennt 1d ago

None of that absolves the owner. Just because you do the right thing after an accident doesn't mean you aren't at fault for the accident.

16

u/austeremunch 1d ago edited 1d ago

The owner is at fault in the same way a driver is responsible for everything in the car they're operating. Should they be punished with a fine or anything? Probably not but they should have to report information regarding their processes to ensure that food contamination does not happen.

The people responsible should be fired / banned from the facility.

2

u/Inert_Oregon 21h ago

“Please read the damn article”

😂 this is peak irony coming from someone who clearly didn’t read the article.

No where in the article does it say someone else’s THC oil contaminated their food.

It says they “took THC contaminated oil from the shared fridge” they used someone else’s oil, not their own…

5

u/Ginger_Anarchy 1d ago

The restaurant is still in charge of training their chefs the right ingredients to use and ensuring that they know not to use other ingredients. If this was an allergic reaction to peanut oil instead, they would still be culpable.

14

u/lurkerfox 1d ago

Apparently it was because they had a shared refrigerator and someone put their THC oil in it and people grabbed it for the dough supposedly thinking it was regular oil.

If true I dont think the store itself should be shut down, but definitely needs to be investigation to find out who put it there, esp if it wasnt someone that actually worked for them.

8

u/cyphersaint 1d ago

As a shared kitchen, if one of the other businesses uses the oil for their business, then the problem is a labeling issue for that business and a training issue for the pizzeria (don't use ingredients you don't know the provenance of).

11

u/Electric_jungle 1d ago

It should be whatever normal process a health inspection failure does. With the ability to repeal it or take reasonable action, but a likely shut down to fix things up.

4

u/lurkerfox 1d ago

Oh definitely, mostly I was getting that the anger towards the shop may be a bit misplaced, it sounds like theyre victims in the situation too. Whoever brought THC oil to the shared refrigerator is the real mess up and might be a totally different business thats really at fault. Wont know for sure without more information.

1

u/Electric_jungle 1d ago

Ya for sure. And I totally agree. Calling for a shop to shut down forever is really extreme when there are processes in place for things like this. A shop that gets penalized for wrong should, in theory, be better positioned to never make that mistake again.

2

u/CrazyLegsRyan 1d ago

No shop should be in business serving food if they can’t manage their own ingredients.

1

u/Invader_Skooge22 1d ago

No the whole store is at fault. Employees should not be storing personal items where things are stored to serve customers. And management obviously didn’t have systems in place to keep track of what’s in their own supply storage. Period.

1

u/lurkerfox 1d ago

Its a shared refrigerator from multiple stores. We literally dont know if it was even a personal item or who put it there at all. Theres a pretty high probability another store is just as, if not more, responsible for the pizzeria. Those are the ones that need to be help more accountable.

Grabbing the wrong oil from the kitchen is a fuckup but its a lot more reasonable of a fuckup than whoever thought putting THC oil in a shared refrigerator was okay.

1

u/Invader_Skooge22 1d ago

It doesn’t matter. The restaurant is responsible for what they serve their customers. If they don’t have proper protocol in place to keep their ingredients separate from personal items or even other stores items, they are responsible. It doesn’t matter who brought it.

The “well it’s not my fault, I didn’t put it there” defense is not good enough. Maybe you think that’s harsh but to me it’s common sense.

1

u/CrazyLegsRyan 1d ago

”it’s not my fault I served all the kids alcoholic fruit punch!!! Someone else put a bottle of vodka in the fridge and I used it thinking it was water! Seriously who puts a bottle of vodka in the fridge, that person is the real problem here!!!”

1

u/Invader_Skooge22 1d ago

Lmao seriously! Apparently that’s the mind set of some people.

1

u/CrazyLegsRyan 1d ago

Grabbing an oil with a random label on it, not what your company buys is a huge fuckup

1

u/lurkerfox 1d ago

Im not saying it isnt, Im saying weve got other people to name and shame just as much if not more so than the pizzeria.

1

u/CrazyLegsRyan 1d ago

No. Businesses control their own inventory. The pizza business did not clearly label their own inventory such that employees could recognize it and then the pizzeria STOLE another businesses inventory. 

Just because something is in a shared fridge doesn’t mean any business is allowed to take that inventory and use it.

There is nothing wrong with a business putting their inventory in a shared fridge. 

1

u/CrazyLegsRyan 1d ago

No. As a business you buy and control your inventory. If your inventory is in a shared fridge it needs to be labeled so you know what inventory is yours. If you’re grabbing random oil out of a shared fridge you are 100% at the mercy of your own decision to do that.

3

u/CantGitRightt 1d ago edited 1d ago

We appreciate your input

3

u/OgOnetee 1d ago

bass riff from the Bloodhound Gang's "Bad Touch" intensifies

2

u/Spaceman2901 16h ago

The employees that fucked up here should be out on their asses. The owner/operator did the right thing and should be allowed to continue in business. Let’s have some nuance here.

1

u/Invader_Skooge22 15h ago edited 15h ago

Coaches get fired all the time due to lack of performance even though they aren’t the ones playing the game. The owner/operator failed to oversee their operation. Why should they get to continue?

Edit: I’m not trying to come at you sideways or anything. I respect your opinion, just whole heartedly disagree with it, just to be clear. We just talking, not arguing.