All in a day's work at a Nashville Taco Bell.
On the 5th of July this year it would appear that some Taco Bell employees had, what I am sure to them seemed like, a fantastic idea with what to do with their unshot fireworks from the night before. Bring them into work!
Well, you guessed it, everything went wrong.
The Nashville Fire Department and Police are investigating, but an arrest has already been made of the manager who was on shift during the incident.
ABC News reported:
"According to the surveillance footage, the employees can be seen locking the doors to the dining room to keep customers from entering the business," the [Nashville] fire department said in the statement. "The video then shows the employees running around the inside of the store with fireworks in their hands."
At one point in the video, the employees can be seen going into the men's bathroom, where they are out of sight of the camera for a short period of time, before returning to the lobby and placing an item into a trash can near the door, according to the Nashville Fire Department.
At this point, if you're an employee at TACO BELL and you hear someone say, "I'm going to go blow up the men's room" you do have plausible deniability. I am sure that is a phrase heard in every Taco Bell around the world multiple times a day.
(If you are the lawyer for this Taco Bell manager you can use that line of defense, I'll just give it to you pro bono).
The report goes on:
"Employees are seen using their cell phone cameras to record the trash can from the outside of the restaurant," the fire department said. "Employees then realized they locked themselves out of the restaurant. The employees tried unsuccessfully to get back into the store. When the employees saw the trash can start to smoke, they called 911 for help."
Wow! Can you believe that? These geniuses who thought it was a great idea to shoot off fireworks inside a working Taco Bell, inside a trash can presumably filled with paper trash, these bastions of intelligence, these amateur pyrotechnicians, still, somehow, managed to lock themselves out of the restaurant during this incident.
The Nashville Fire Department estimated that the fire caused more than $30,000 worth of damage to the inside of the restaurant. Investigators also found damage inside of the men's bathroom where it appeared fireworks were ignited inside of the trash can.
The restaurant's shift leader, 25-year-old Courtney Mayes, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with felony aggravated arson. She is being held on a $5,000 bond at the Davidson County Jail in Nashville.
A tough rap for this manager who somehow let her employees shoot off fireworks inside Taco Bell. But that mugshot and name printed in the paper alone may be enough punishment.
I know, it's hard to get good help these days. But is it really too much to ask that your employees have at least enough brain cells to rub together to tell them that setting off fireworks, inside, at work is a really less than smart idea?
And they want $15 an hour? You're not making the minimum wage argument easier to win with this nonsense.
