A Japanese sushi restaurant chain is suing a customer for ¥67 million ($712,000) after a video went viral of him licking a shared soy sauce bottle and wiping his saliva on sushi on a conveyor-belt, according to local media.
Akindo Sushiro, a leading sushi train chain, claims the incident at a store in Gifu, in central Japan, caused a significant drop in customers nationwide.
Its parent company claims it lost more than ¥16 billion ($170 million) in economic value in a single day when shares fell 4.8 per cent on January 31 after the video spread, Japanese newspaper The Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
According to Japanese news agency Kyodo, the unnamed teenager showed remorse and claimed the footage was intended for friends and not a viral video.
The viral trend of licking tabletop condiments and other unhygienic behaviour at sushi restaurants in Japan earlier this year was dubbed “sushi terrorism”.
It sparked outrage in the country, which has famously high standards of cleanliness.
Three people aged 15, 19 and 21 were arrested in March after the 21-year-old was filmed drinking from a communal soy sauce bottle at another major sushi restaurant chain, Kura Sushi.
“We sincerely hope the arrests will spread awareness in society that these pranks, which fundamentally undermine our system based on a relationship of trust with customers, are a crime, and that there will be no copycat acts in future,” Kura Sushi said in a statement at the time.
Sushi restaurant chains took drastic action like halting conveyor belts, only delivering food once ordered and using AI cameras to monitor suspicious behaviour.
