Couple to Sue Chili’s After DNA Test Proves Waiter Spit in Their Soda
If you’re a disgruntled waiter looking to punish an obnoxious customer, you should should think twice before hocking a revenge loogie into their drinks, because now cops will bust you for that shit using science.
Last July, Ken Yerdon and his wife Julie Aluzzo-Yerdon were enjoying, or attempting to enjoy, their weekly dinner at an upstate New York Chili’s when they told their waiter, Gregory Lamica, that their broccoli was undercooked and that they still hadn’t received their chips.
“They were busy — we understood,” Aluzzo-Yerdon told Syracuse.com. “We were patient with him, but we could tell he was annoyed with us. All Ken said to him was, ‘Are you OK? Have we done something to offend you?’ And he said, ‘Oh, no, no.”
Lamica, however, was lying; he was so offended after being asked to refill the couple’s to-go cups that he spit in them. Unfortunately for the Yerdons, and Ken especially, the spit wasn’t discovered until Ken had already taken two sips. Then the lid popped off.
“I saw the spit in the cup,” Ken Yerdon said, according to Syracuse.com. “It wasn’t regular spit either. It was definitely a loogie.”
The couples took a picture of the spit and drove back to the Chili’s, where the managers apologized and gave them coupons and a refund but refused to fire Lamica.
“We just felt like he needed to be terminated immediately,” Julie said. “To do something like that was so vile and beyond the pale. We couldn’t believe it.”
As he left, Yerdon saw Lamica in the parking lot, according to a state police report.
“I said, ‘Why did you spit in my drink?’” Yerdon’s statement to police said. “He was bawling. He just kept walking with his apron in his hand and he didn’t answer me. I said to him, ‘You wouldn’t be crying if you didn’t spit in my drink.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to lose my job.’ “
So the Yerdons called the cops, who tested Lamica and compared his DNA to the spit in the cup. Three months later the results came in; the spit was a match.
In Feburary, Lamica confessed to one count of disorderly conduct and and was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge and a $125 fine. He is no longer a Chili’s employee, though he worked there for three months after the spitting incident, according to the Yerdons.
The fine and dismissal, however, were not enough for the Yerdons, who now plan on suing Chili’s because of “the psychological trauma they endured not knowing whether Yerdon had contracted HIV or hepatitis,” as Syracuse.com put it. (HIV cannot be transmitted through saliva, but there’s no use in arguing with someone who ordered broccoli at a Chili’s).
