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California Repeals Rubber Glove Law For Restaurant, Bar Workers
Earlier this year, a new California state law banned restaurant workers from touching food with their bare hands and required that bartenders and cooks wear rubber gloves. But following a backlash from the public and the foodservice industry, the state legislature has voted to repeal the ban, going back to rules that simply ask workers to minimize the touching of customers’ food.
The idea behind the ban was to prevent the possible spread of germs from employees’ bare hands to the food on the plates, but as many people have pointed out, there’s nothing preventing the germs on the gloves from getting onto the food.
Think about it. If a customer gets sick because a careless and ill-trained chef thoughtlessly coughs into his hand and then goes back to slicing a tomato, it doesn’t matter very much if the coughed-into hand was bare or gloved. Whatever he coughed up is on the hand that then touched the tomato.
Additionally, a report from the Centers for Disease Control found that the wearing of rubber gloves leads some workers to be more careless about their hygiene. If someone’s bare skin gets crud on it, the natural reaction is to wash up. But working under the protection of latex might give some foodservice workers the false impression that their hands are clean when they aren’t.
Beyond that, there is the waste, cost, and environmental issues involved with the use and discarding of millions of additional gloves.
Oh — and there’s something oddly creepy about a bartender putting on rubber gloves just to garnish your gin and tonic with a lime wedge.
The restaurant industry, and many outside of the business, contend that that the best way to prevent restaurants from spreading pathogens is to be strict about hand-washing, kitchen sanitation and food storage. The foodservice world often moves very quickly and deals in large volumes; all it takes is one person in the kitchen to forget to wash his hands after using the bathroom to put people at risk.
Restaurants in California had a six-month grace period before they were required to make employees wear the gloves. The repeal action is coming just at the end of that grace period, so a number of eateries will never have had to deal with the nuisance.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
Even Alligators Have Cravings For McDonald’s Sometimes
Employees of the restaurant received a decidedly different customer Thursday night when an alligator was spotted making its way through the drive-thru, News 92FM reports.
But before the gator could pick up his extra value meal, a local sheriff was able to use a dog leash to move the animal to a nearby creek.
The ordeal was over in a flash, but local law enforcement officials had enough time to snap a few pictures and have a little fun on Twitter.
Alligator Visits McDonald’s Drive-Thru in Fulshear [News 92 FM]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
Woman Electrocuted And Killed While Talking On Phone Plugged Into Faulty USB Charger
If you’re still one of those people pish-toshing the idea that buying counterfeit or unapproved electronics and accessories can be dangerous, you should learn something from a recent tragedy in Australia. A 28-year-old woman was killed there while talking on a phone that she’d plugged into a faulty USB charger, prompting authorities to warn consumers everywhere against using such devices.
The woman was found dead while wearing headphones inside her home, according to Fair Trading New South Wales, the group that oversees consumer issues such as this, after it’s believed that the $4.95 faulty charger sent high voltage through her body.
Officials with Fair Trading NSW said the phone had been charged into a wall outlet while she was talking, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The voltage seems to travel up through the faulty charger into her phone and she was wearing earplugs and also operating a laptop which was also plugged into a power point,” a spokeswoman said. “So the (electricity) traveled back down through the earphones to the laptop and into the power point.”
“Two-hundred-and-forty volts (then) travelled up into the phone which obviously the phone isn’t designed to handle.
The Fair Trading Commissioner says the business that sold her the non-compliant charger could now face fines up to $875,000 and a two-year sentence. It’s been shut down, with hundreds of allegedly faulty USB chargers seized by officials.
“We will certainly be further investigating an outlet which we have detected have supplied theses types of non-compliant articles [chargers] with a view to prosecution,” he said.
He added that there were a a lot of cheap chargers available for sale, something authorities weren’t really aware of until busting the mobile accessory business.
“This is the first time we’ve been aware of them in large numbers,” he said, urging the public to not buy these kinds of unauthorized or unapproved products.
Faulty USB phone charger blamed for woman’s death [Sydney Morning Herald]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
Here are eight of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.
Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Want to see your pictures on our site? Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
“Women-Owned” Labels Coming To Walmart Shelves This Fall
The logo, which is the work of two nonprofit groups and Walmart stores, aims to bring consumer recognition of products provided by women-owned businesses on store shelves,Bloomberg Businessweek reports.
The retail giant will begin using the small, circular symbol – representative of women holding hands – on everything from lingerie to salsa this September.
So how does Walmart determine what products are produced by women-owned companies? It doesn’t, that task is handed off to the Women’s Enterprise National Council and WEConnect International. Businesses that get the same of approval from either organization can use the new logo.
“People are looking for reasons to feel good about the company they’re buying from,” Pamela Prince-Eason, CEO of Women’s Business Enterprise National Council tells Bloomberg Businessweek.
Sexy & Smart, a lingerie brand, and Maggie’s Salsa are two companies that already plan to use the logo, but they won’t be the last, Prince-Eason says.
“I think there’s a very strong business case for having the logo on a product,” she says, citing research from Walmart that found 90% of female shoppers will purchase goods marketed by women-owned businesses.
For its part, Walmart has been trying to amp up its women-owned products for some time. In 2011, the company pledged to buy $20 billion of products from U.S. female-owned businesses over the next five years. That initiative also includes training women to work in factories and retail around the globe.
Coming Soon to Walmart: A New Way to Find Products from Women Entrepreneurs [Bloomberg Businessweek]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
Two Men Throw Away Winning $1M Powerball Ticket, Sue Lottery Commission To Get The Money
Just imagine realizing that you’d won a million dollars — after you’d already thrown away the ticket. No one’s gonna believe that one, right? But two New Jersey men say they’ve got proof they won, after throwing out their tickets in error, and they want their Powerball money.
So how does someone throw away a winning lottery ticket? The guys claim that when they checked the winning numbers of the Powerball on the lottery’s website, it hadn’t been updated with the new numbers, unbeknownst to them, reports NorthJersey.com. So they tossed the ticket in the trash.
But they realized later that the ticket had every correct number except the Powerball, a prize worth $1 million.
“I was losing my mind. We were both losing our minds,” one of the men said, after realizing the ticket was in the trash, which the garbage company said had been picked up and brought to a landfill in Canada.
The men said they could prove the win without the missing ticket: One of the men bought three tickets at a Mahwah 7-11, where it was reported that a $1 million ticket had been sold.
He kept the first and third tickets, and gave the second to his friend. That one was the winner, and that friend was the one who tossed it when he thought it was a dud. But the other man kept the first and third tickets, which meant the missing ticket’s serial number would line up right there in the middle with his purchase.
At first they were told by the Lottery Commission last year that they could just submit a claim form along with the remaining tickets.
“They even told me, ‘You don’t need a lawyer, don’t get one. We know you’re in the right,’ ” one of the men explained.
Fast forward to a year since the drawing, and nothing has happened> So the twosome filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Trenton this week to demand that the lottery pony up their cash, as it’s at fault for failing to update its website in a timely manner.
The Lottery Commission has commented on the situation, as it’s pending litigation.
Lesson learned: Don’t throw out your lottery tickets until you’ve checked, and double-checked, and then probably triple and quadruple checked those numbers.
Two men say they threw away a $1M lottery ticket, sue NJ to collect [NorthJersey.com]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
‘Employee Of The Year’ Postal Inspector Charged With Stealing Passports, Pills, Playboys From Packages
A U.S. postal inspector and 2012 Federal Employee of the Year award recipient probably won’t be getting a trophy for his latest noteworthy achievement, as he stands accused of stealing pills, jewelry, passports, Playboy magazines, knives, marijuana, and an autographed Joan Rivers collectible from the mail he was entrusted to protect.
Unlike previous postal pilferers that we’ve featured on the site who did their thieving in secret, this 52-year-old was apparently making little effort to cover his alleged theft.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he directed his employees at a San Jose, CA, processing and distribution center to alert him whenever things like collectibles, cash, drugs, electronics, jewelry, rare coins, precious metals and other memorabilia were found loose in the mail.
The employees were led to believe that these items would be returned to the proper parties, but as you’ve probably guessed, authorities say the inspector was keeping them for himself. He would either take the items home or stash them in caches around the distribution center.
Authorities say he attempted to discover all the locations of security cameras in the center so that he could steal these items without leaving a video record of his crimes, but investigators were still able to find images of what they claim is the inspector stealing mail since 2013.
But just a year earlier, the San Francisco Bay Area Federal Executive Board, which coordinates federal agencies in the region, recognized the inspector for his “responsiveness in dealing with the media on issues involving criminal and hazardous situations,” and named him a Federal Employee of the Year.
Now he faces federal charges of delaying and destroying mail, theft of mail and possession of stolen mail.
Here are some previous stories about sticky-fingered folks at the USPS:
Postal Carrier Accused Of Stealing 20,000 Pieces Of Mail, Collecting Credit Cards And Stacks Of DVDs
Mail Carrier In Big Trouble Because Stealing Checks Sent To Charities Is Definitely Illegal
Postal Worker Accused Of Stealing Meds From War Vets, Selling To Others On Her Route
Postal Employee Caught With 10 Years Of Stolen Bulk Mail Wants To Keep Job
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
KFC Serves Up Kentucky Fried Hand Towel To Customers
That’s not blue meat. It’s a blue hand towel.
People always joke about fast food meat — especially deep-fried fast food meat — maybe not being from the animal it claims to be. And while we’re pretty sure that KFC generally does indeed serve up actual chicken, one family in England ended up buying a Colonel’s Original Recipe hand towel.
A woman from Newcastle tells the Daily Mail that she recently bought some KFC chicken for her 7-year-old stepson, but when the youngster went to chow down on the fried bird, it revealed something blue and inedible inside.
“I got a shock,” says the stepmom. “I thought the actual chicken had gone off.”
She says it was actually worse to discover that it wasn’t spoiled chicken, but a deep-fried hand towel.
“If it was bad chicken they might have just had a bad batch or something,” she explains. “But the blue roll could have been used for anything – it could have bleach or disinfectant on it… Had someone wiped their hands on it, had it been used to wipe the floor?”
She says that when she took the hand towel and its 11 herbs and spices back to the KFC, she was told to contact KFC customer support. She did, but even then, the company wasn’t terribly responsive.
“I had to keep ringing them and keep following it up,” she says. “It felt like I had to do all the work when it was their mistake.”
KFC eventually investigated the matter and issued an apology, along with an offer of a free meal for their troubles.
“The blue tissue has most likely originated from a tissue roll used for KFC hygiene purposes,” reads the explanation given to the family. “The store assume it must have fallen unseen into the breading lug that is under the sieve and was not noticed by the cook.”
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
Docs Show Current GM VP Aware Of Ignition Problem In 2005; Federal Grand Jury Probing Recall Delay
A May 2005 e-mail from GM’s Doug Parks — then chief engineer on the Chevy Cobalt and now a VP at the car maker — shows that he was well aware of the problem almost a decade before these vehicles were recalled. He is not one of the 15 GM employees who have been fired over this debacle. Click image to see full-size.
General Motors’ internal investigation claims that no top executives at the car company were aware of the defective ignition switch that has resulted in at least 13 deaths (and likely many more) and the recall of nearly millions of vehicles. But newly released documents from the Congressional investigation into the debacle indicate that one current GM Vice-President was made aware of the problem as early as 2005.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which recently grilled GM CEO Mary Barra, has released around 80 new documents unearthed during its investigation, much of it correspondence between various GM engineers and folks at Delphi, the manufacturer who supplied the defective switch.
But one internal GM e-mail [PDF] from June 2005 details potential fixes to the problem and includes news stories from the NY Times and others about reports of Chevy Cobalts mysteriously turning off because drivers bumped the ignition switches with their keys.
Among the intended recipients of that e-mail was Doug Parks, who used to be chief engineer on the Cobalt and the Saturn Ion, another recalled vehicle. Parks was not a VP at the time, but has been the company’s VP Global Product Programs since 2012, as is indicated in these org charts provided to investigators. He’s also been described as a close associate of Barra, herself a longtime veteran at GM before rising to the CEO position at the beginning of 2014.
Another e-mail from 2005 shows that Park was indeed aware of the issue, as he asks, “can we come up with a ‘plug’ to go into the key that centers the ring through the middle of the key and not the edge/slot? This appears to be the only real, quick solution.”
The reason that it’s important for General Motors to claim that no top execs at the company knew of the ignition problem before 2009 involves a tricky condition of the company’s bankruptcy restructuring. As part of that deal, the post-bankruptcy “New GM” can not be held liable for non-accident claims related to defective vehicles produced by pre-bankruptcy “Old GM.”
However, lawyers representing plaintiffs in class-action suits against the car maker say that the fact that the ignition problem went without a recall for more than a decade is a sign that the New GM conspired to cover up the defect for several years.
The fact that a chief engineer learned of this problem at the Old GM and kept it with him (or disregarded it; which may be worse) through his rise to a high-profile vice-presidency at the company would seem to give the plaintiffs’ lawyers much-needed ammunition.
While not from a VP or other top exec, an internal 2009 e-mail about the Cobalt ignition problem gives an indication as to how the problem had become a part of GM lore by this point.
“Gentleman! This issue has been around since man first lumbered out of sea and stood on two feet,” writes one employee about the issue of changing the key hole on Cobalts to lessen the chances of the ignition being turned off. “In fact, I think Darwin wrote the first [Problem Resolution Tracking System] on this and included as an attachment as part of his ‘Theory of Evolution.’”
In what may be additional evidence of either a cover-up or pure ineptitude, an e-mail from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation to GM from July 2013 says that the general perception of GM’s response to questions about the Cobalt investigation is that the car maker is “slow to communicate” and “slow to act.”
“The documents that we have received to date paint a disturbing and devastating picture, a beyond-worst-case systemic breakdown that led to lives needlessly lost,” said Congressmen Tim Murphy and Fred Upton in a statement to Detroit News. “But as the recalls mount, important questions remain and our investigation continues into both GM and NHTSA.”
The newly released papers also reveal that there is indeed a federal grand jury looking into the ignition delay, as some of the documents from Delphi include stamps indicating that they were submitted to the Justice Department under a grand jury subpoena.
A rep for the company confirms with Detroit News that “Delphi has been cooperating with all government agencies to provide any requested information.”
The documents also help to clarify the process through which the GM engineer responsible for the switch made under-the-radar changes that resulted in a safer ignition but failed to change the product number, meaning that defective and non-defective switches were commingled in GM inventory for years after the fix was made.
Bloomberg reports that the engineer — one of the 15 people who have been fired in the wake of the recall — authorized the switch improvements after an internal panel said no to the proposal for a new ignition switch that wouldn’t turn off with a slight tug or a bump of the knee.
E-mail correspondence from 2002 between this engineer and Delphi shows the discussion of how the existing switch could be strengthened. Delphi said that making it more difficult for the switch to be turned off could have the unintended effect of making it harder to turn the start the car with a key. This could lead to switches breaking or wearing out too quickly. “[D]o nothing,” replied the GM engineer, “maintain present course.”
Meanwhile, GM announced today that it will finally reveal details of its plan to compensate victims of crashes in cars related to the ignition defect. As Barra told lawmakers last week, accepting compensation from the GM fund would be in lieu of a victim or a victim’s family seeking legal action against the company.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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