An Ohio woman who threw a burrito at a Chipotle worker in a fit of rage and then blamed her behavior on being a Gemini has completed her unusual court-ordered punishment.
Rosemary Hayne, 39, was caught on camera throwing Mexican food at Emily Russell, 26, a manager at a Chipotle store in Parma, Cleveland, last September because she was unhappy with the wait time and the food.
The irascible customer pleaded guilty to assault in December, and Judge Timothy Gilligan ordered her to work 20 hours a week at a fast-food restaurant as punishment.
Hayne said Grub Street from New York Magazine that he had never thrown food – or any other object – at anyone before, and gave a strange explanation for why he made an exception for Russell.
“She brought out the Italian Gemini in me,” Hayne said. “I’m 40 and no one has ever done that, not even my husband.”
Judge Gilligan said Hayne’s sentence was “not intended to punish” but “to gain empathy”.
“You didn’t get your burrito bowl the way you liked it and this is how you respond?” he had told Hayne during sentencing.
“These are not the real housewives of Parma. This behaviour is not acceptable.”
But the punishment does not seem to have had the desired effect.
For starters, Hayne had worked in fast food restaurants before, so he knew what it was like to have customers get upset with their orders.
“To get it instead of having to sit in jail, amen, thank you,” Hayne told Grub Street. “Let me go to Burger King and be their whore, for real.”
The first step for Hayne was to land a job at a fast-food restaurant — a difficult task given that she felt compelled to mention the burrito incident rather than risk having it found out about through the viral video in the middle of the application process.
“I was completely honest with people,” she said. “And I got rejected probably seven times.”
Hayne was sentenced to work at a fast food chain for two months instead of a prison term after being found guilty of one count of assault.
Russell told the court she was traumatized by the assault and had to leave her job at Chipotle, where she had worked for more than four years.
In January of this year, Hayne landed a job at a Burger King. He said he approached the job with a positive attitude and only had to deal with one unruly customer.
The customer wanted four mozzarella sticks with eight packets of marinara sauce. When she was told she would have to pay extra for the additional sauce, she balked.
Hayne’s colleagues at Burger King made the woman pay for extra sauce and went about their day, but it seems Hayne is still prone to taking the customer’s side.
“If I was in the drive-thru: ‘Here’s your eight damn sauces, have a nice day,'” he said.
“I know the customer is always right, whether they’re wrong or not, give them what they want. That burger isn’t going to cost you anything. It’s not going to cost that company anything.”
Hayne also defended her own outburst rather than learning from it, saying the minute-long video took the violent interaction out of context.
A viral video shows Hayne yelling at Russell at a Chipotle and throwing an entire burrito bowl in his face earlier this year.
The Chipotle worker also said she had remade Hayne’s order twice and added additional protein, but Hayne came back and abruptly threw the bowl in her face.
He said that if an extended version had been discovered, “you’re going to see me waiting 35 minutes. You’re going to see me say something to Emily that’s not rude or anything. You’re going to see her talk rude to me.”
“I wish I could publish that,” he added.
Hayne said even the police officers who arrived at his home agreed with his assessment of the fast-food restaurant and told him he should have ventured to the Chipotle in the next town over.
“When the police came to my house, I swear to God, the first thing they said to me was, ‘You know you screwed up going to that Chipotle, that Chipotle is shit!'” Hayne told Grub Street.
Hayne’s attorney weighed in on the comment, adding that “none of that is a defense,” while Hayne agreed that she was “absolutely wrong” to throw out her chicken burrito bowl.
She also revealed that the dish contained an all-beige ensemble: white rice, chicken, sour cream and cheese.
Russell said Chipotle was unsupportive of him after the assault and that it was “getting mentally and physically difficult.”
Russell, however, was pleased with the sentence.
“He didn’t get a slap on the wrist, so he’s going to learn how to work in fast food and hopefully do well,” the Chipotle employee said.
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