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Domino's Charges Two Workers for Contaminating Food

Posted Thu, 2009/04/16 - 01:24 by Don Sniegowski
Patrick Doyle, Domino's Pizza President USA

Domino’s is making an example of food pranksters Kristy Lynn Hammonds and Michael Anthony Setzer. In a YouTube video, Domino’s president of U.S. operations, Patrick Doyle, stated Wednesday that the pizza chain is taking the two employees' prank of contaminating food and filming it as “incredibly serious.”

The Conover, North Carolina franchise completely shut down on Tuesday to sanitize the store, dumping all unpackaged food. The County Public Health department inspected the pizzeria twice.

Doyle stated emphatically in the video, “It sickens me that the actions of two individuals impact our great system, where 125,000 men and women work for local business owners around the U.S. and in more than 60 countries around the world.”

According to MediaPost, the Domino’s brand has indeed taken a major hit from Monday evening’s incident.

“BrandIndex shows Domino's Pizza's "buzz score" -- which measures response to the question: "If you've heard anything about this brand in the past two weeks, was it positive or negative?" -- as dropping from 22.5 as of April 10 to 13.6 as of Tuesday. The drop was mainly driven by negative perceptions expressed by women, the service reports.” - MediaPost 

Besides the perceived problems of food sanitation, one of the pranksters, Kristy Hammonds, was a registered sex offender. Regarding how a Domino’s franchise could hire a sex offender, Domino’s Doyle responded, “We are reexamining all of our hiring practices to make sure that people like this don’t make it into our stores.”

Few franchisees of any brand conduct pre-employment screening.

Doyle says in the video, “They have been dismissed and there are felony warrants out for their arrest.”

Both later turned themselves into the Conover Police Department at 3:30pm, where they were placed under $75,000 bail in secured bonds and could see up to a year in prison. (See text of applicable NC law)

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Well I suppose there is no by gordman
Submitted by gordman on Mon, 2009/07/27 - 10:54.

Well I suppose there is no bail bond for these guys... They obviously deserve the punishment, they should be given as an example for all those trying to contaminate food. I am glad the pizza chain took this as serious as it gets, we would want to hear about food contamination made on purpose or just for fun... Gordman, Austin bail bonds agent

Domino's Employees Appear in Court by Bob Frankman
Bob Frankman's picture
Submitted by Bob Frankman on Fri, 2009/04/17 - 23:24.
Two Domino's Pizza employees, Kristy Hammonds and Michael Setzer, appeared seperately in court on Friday, each asking for a court-appointed attorney. - WCNC.com
Why has the Domino's incident caught so much traction? by Juan F
Juan F's picture
Submitted by Juan F on Thu, 2009/04/16 - 11:42.
Domino's has answered very quickly on YouTube, Twitter and the Consumerist. CNET adds this observation on why this particular incident has caught so much attention. After all, there have been others.
"Last year, Burger King fired an employee for making a video while bathing in the restaurant's kitchen sink and uploading it to MySpace. Yet the brand seems to march confidently on."

Actually, the tub pranksters were KFC employees, not Burger King workers. (see video)

"Why is this Domino's video appearing to have such a deleterious effect on the brand? Perhaps it's that it has simply gained a viral life far beyond its makers' expectations. Or perhaps it's that in recessionary times people are relying far more on fast food to get through their budgetary week and are desperate, despite stories to the contrary, to know that these restaurants are sanitary."
Why Domino's story caught traction. by Paul Steinberg
Paul Steinberg's picture
Submitted by Paul Steinberg on Thu, 2009/04/16 - 13:01.

There is a big difference between bathing in the sink and stuffing product up your nose and then putting it on a sandwich to serve to a customer. Not to mention the farts and the booger and rubbing your private parts and then using that rag to wash the dishes.

A closer QSR analogy would be the Riese brothers' Dunkin Donuts debacle from the 90s which was a running punch line on David Letterman for weeks, or the more recent Taco Bell rats doing pull-ups while TV cameras rolled.

Moreover, the media quickly found out from a quick internet search that one of the employees was registered on the North Carolina state website as a sex offender. One comment in on a local website discussed the sex offender's mother doing an interview with a tv station in which the mother stated that the Domino's manager allowed the mother to accompany her daughter on home deliveries due to the very fact that the daughter was a registered sex offender! If true, that means that Domino's deliberately sent this sex offender to deliver pizza to people's homes--yet another blow to the Domino's brand.

The ease of dissemination via new media is certainly an element in both the rapid transmission of and response to the story. But this would still have been a news story (albeit a local one) in the pre-Internet age. 

Paul Steinberg
Franchisee Attorney, New York City, Ph: 212-529-5400


Paul Steinberg, Franchisee Attorney, New York City, Ph: 212-529-5400
When an employee is listed as a sex offender by Darnelle White
Darnelle White's picture
Submitted by Darnelle White on Fri, 2009/04/17 - 04:56.
Hiring registered sex offenders in delivering pizzas is a problem. Yet I suspect very few small business retail outlets screen for such employees. It is legal to hire sex-offenders and to make sure they are chaperoned while making deliveries. The Workforce Management journal speaks about the legal tight rope an owner walks in hiring a sex-offender.
"In most states, employers are forced to walk a delicate line between their obligation to provide a safe workplace for employees—and the ramifications for them if they fail to do so—and their obligation to refrain from considering an employee’s criminal history, except as it relates to suitability for employment."
If the employee commits a sex crime in the parking lot or on duty, the small business owner is liable.
Domino's Used Social Sites Well by Darnelle White
Darnelle White's picture
Submitted by Darnelle White on Fri, 2009/04/17 - 04:33.
Domino's was smart in posting a video press release on YouTube showing how they were on top of this. Notice how they didn't try to cover this up. The YouTube video is easily available to media and Net surfers. Domino's used the same social technology and used it well.

This is what PRWeek says about how Domino's handled this fast-moving event:

“We did this [video] in the same forum these people used to do this to us,” said McIntyre (Domino's Communication VP). “The credit we're getting and the comments we're seeing is that we didn't hide and we haven't been ‘corporate' but responding like real people.” With the support of advertising AOR Crispin Porter and Bogusky (CPB), McIntyre said it began to shift its online strategy on the night of April 14 to include more online outreach, including tweets from staff's personal Twitter accounts. Staffers, thereafter, began tweeting and leading people to the company's online statement on its corporate Web site, which was also posted that night. ... Now the company is holding internal discussions on its strategy going forward including how social media and SEO should play a role, he added. ... Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford called the video prank “very unfortunate” but noted it was an “opportunity for Domino's to become part of the conversation…establish more of a social presence.”