Indoor plumbing has replaced outhouses in West Virginia for more than two generations now, but someone needs to tell that to this General District Manager of food chain Pizza Hut. It’s been reported by several media outlets in the mountain state that the Pizza Hut in the small town of Kermit has been closed after the District Manager was caught on CCTV cameras urinating in the same sink that cooking utensils are washed in. Here’s the full story from WOWKTV.com, and be sure to scroll down to the bottom for the actual video.
Inside of the Pizza Hut in Kermit, West Virginia surveillance cameras captured one of your worst fears coming to life.
“Oh my god, he just peed into the sink,” said Tracy Johnson of Mingo County, while she watched the surveillance video.
The video recorded a few weeks ago shows a man walking over to the deep sink and urinating in it. The same sink used to wash kitchen utensils and supplies. The Pizza Hut Corporation has confirmed the man in the video is a Pizza Hut District Manager.
“Made me sick out of my stomach to think that I ever ate there and that happened,” said Johnson. “But I will never go there and eat again.”
Michelle Salmons of Kermit and her family wanted to eat at the restaurant. However, when they pulled up the doors were locked.
13 News showed her the video and she said, “That’s disgusting. That is just horrible. Oh my goodness and we eat there all the time.”
13 News contacted the Mingo County Health Department regarding this video. Brett Vance, the city’s sanitarian, watched the video and went to the restaurant to temporarily close it.
Now a sign hangs on Pizza Hut’s front door saying the restaurant has been shut down because of “conditions within the establishment constituting a substantial hazard to the public health.”
“It’s something you hope to never have to deal with but we take it seriously,” he said. “They’re closed until we do a thorough cleaning on the place and have the reassurance there are safeguards in place.”
The Pizza Hut restaurant is franchised by Rage Inc. out of Wichita, Kansas. 13 News reached out to Rage Inc. and the Pizza Hut Corporation about this video.
In a written statement Pizza Hut said:
“First of all, we are embarrassed by the actions of this individual. Pizza Hut has zero tolerance for violations of our operating standards, and the local owner of the restaurant took immediate action and terminated the employee involved. While the isolated incident occurred during non-business hours and did not involve any food tampering, we follow strict safety and handling procedures and the restaurant has since been closed. We apologize to our customers of Kermit, West Virginia and those in our system who have been let down by this situation.”
Mingo County Health Department officials said it could be days and even weeks before they consider reopening the Pizza Hut.
Rage Inc. operates six Pizza Huts in West Virginia. The restaurants are located in Credo, Chapmanville, Danville, two in Logan and Kermit.
