Woman Arrested After Allegedly Pouring Hennessy in Taco Bell Worker’s Mouth From Drive-Thru
Credit to Author: Jelisa Castrodale| Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2019 18:33:11 +0000
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour, which would be the first minimum wage increase in a decade. This bill has little-to-no chance of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate—because “Republican-controlled”—but it’s still an encouraging sign for workers. Shortly after the vote, Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said that 15 bucks would be a good start, but she really thinks that the minimum wage should’ve been bumped up to “$18 to $20 an hour at this point.” She also believes that it’s probably time to stop expecting restaurant workers to live on $2.13 an hour, plus tips.
Those suggestions went over rather poorly with the hosts Fox & Friends, who spent Tuesday morning suggesting that service industry workers should either zip it, or get an additional restaurant job if they can’t make a living with the one they already have. “A minimum wage job is not meant to be a career,” Ainsley Earhardt added. “If you’re working at McDonald’s or a small little restaurant where you’re making tips, you are right. If you are nice to the people, you make a lot of money.” (Reminder: McDonald’s workers do not actually receive tips.)
Maybe customers should start tipping whoever makes their Steak Reaper Ranch Fries, but it’s probably best to do it in cash. We have no idea whether Elianna Aguilar-Aguilar was trying to… gratuitize a Taco Bell employee when she leaned out of her car window and poured some Hennessy into his mouth, but that’s probably not the way to do it.
Aguilar-Aguilar was waiting in the drive-thru of a Beaverton, Oregon Taco Bell at about 1:20 a.m. on Saturday when she allegedly shared her cognac with the guy who was working the drive-thru at the time. This wasn’t a great idea—for a number of reasons, but mostly because a Washington County Sheriff’s deputy was in the car right behind her.
The officer followed Aguilar-Aguilar out of the parking lot and quickly pulled her over. She was taken to jail on suspicion of driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII); her blood alcohol level was .12, which is a full 50% higher than the state’s legal limit of .08.
In a Facebook post, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office called it the “WEIRDEST DUII OF THE WEEKEND.” Deputy Brian van Kleef, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said that Aguilar-Aguilar and the unidentified employee did not know each other. “We talked to the employee after, and he said most of it was spilled on him and that he actually didn’t consume the Hennessy,” he told Oregon Live.
In Burlington, Ontario, that Taco Bell worker would’ve been encouraged to wipe his mouth and call the cops (assuming that a deputy wasn’t already watching through her own windshield). In the spring of 2017, the Halton Regional Police Service started testing a program called Project Drive-Thru that educated managers and employees at 38 Burlington-area fast food restaurants about what driving under the influence might look like. If they served—or just saw—a driver who seemed to be impaired, the workers were encouraged to report it to the police immediately.
Anissa Aldridge of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) praised the program to the CBC. “They can look into the car, they can see if there’s open alcohol, they can see if there’s drugs,” she said. “They can see how they actually manoeuvre getting into the drive-thru. Yeah, I think it’s a great vantage point.”
We can’t wait to hear Fox & Friends’ hot takes about this Taco Bell situation. Obviously, fast food workers don’t need a wage increase, because customers provide them with Hennessy—and apparently, all those fat tips.
This article originally appeared on VICE US.