Chef Sentenced to Three Years in Jail for Spitting in Customer's Food The New Jersey cook spat on an overly demanding customer's roll.
By Kate Taylor
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
When it comes to messing with food, if you do the crime, you have to do the time – no matter how annoying the customer.
A former chef at a Mount Olive, N.J., restaurant was sentenced this week to three years in jail for spitting on a customer's roll.
The incident unfolded last October when a customer keep sending her chicken française back to the kitchen with complaints. Annoyed, the cook, John F. Stagg Jr., spat on her roll.
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Stagg insists he never actually served the roll, but when the restaurant discovered his actions, he was fired. He later pled guilty to the charge of tampering with food.
The pub where Stagg was employed at the time reportedly has been forced to close its kitchen after a co-worker reported health violations, including the spitting incident, to authorities, though the bar remains open.
While three years sounds like heavy punishment for an admittedly disgusting crime, Stagg will serve his sentence concurrently with a four-year sentence expected for an unrelated robbery charge.
This case is hardly the only instance of bad behavior at restaurants. In a 2014 survey of food service workers by Baylor University, 6 percent of respondents admitted to "contaminating" food – a small, but not insignificant, number. However, the study found that customers should be more worried about less vile infractions, with 65 percent of servers admitting to purposefully slowing down service and 11 percent forging a bigger tip.
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