A Korean woman in Japan says she was hospitalized after being served a cup with bleach in it. She’s accusing the restaurant of a hate crime.

15 comments

1. Not to be dismissive of this but Tokyo tap water tastes pretty much like bleach

2. >It was only after her husband protested that the waitress admitted the water was poured from a container of bleach-laced water, she said.

   The waitress was in full panic mode and basically afraid to say anything is my best guess.

   >The restaurant later said the staff had mistaken a stainless steel container filled with the cleaning agent for a regular container of drinking water, according to the newspaper.

   Why in the God’s name and how do they have bleach water anywhere near where the serving water!?!

   While I understand that having diluted bleached water can be used to quickly sanitize surfaces, it should be store away from serving water with labels on the bleach water container.

   I don’t think this is a hate crime, but a case of negligence that resulted in bodily harm. At least based on the current set of reported facts and evidence. I really find it hard to argue “hate crime” because it really seams like the restaurant staff had a realization they “fucked up” and did not have a pre-disposition of malice.

3. Fmm ya sure

4. Ya know we practice what we preach

5. Definitely not a hate crime, more like negligence and trying to destroy evidence and covering up. I’ve been to that restaurant a couple of times and am not surprised given the terrible attitude of the workers there. Mitsukoshi also needs to take some blame by letting that store resume business as usual the following day.

6. This sounds familiar! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cracker-barrel-ordered-to-pay-9-4-million-after-man-drinks-cleaning-liquid/

7. You can “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity” however long you want, but it seems unlikely to me that they had an unlabelled container with cleaning agent in a place that could easily be confused with serving water and it just happens that the first time they messed up was with a Korean woman. I don’t believe their claim that there was an easily mistaken cleaning agent container because if that’s common practice the odds are enormous the same mistake would have been made earlier in their years of business with a Japanese customer.

8. Sounds like attempted murder

9. This is one of those cases were I think that intent shouldn’t be used to determine the level of punishment a person gets for the crime. Both possibilities are equally egregious and should include strong sentences.

   It reminds me of the gag from BBC show, The Young Ones, where one of the characters put a potion that turns the drinker into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac into a can of Coke so no one will drink it by accident. Don’t put deadly poisons in places where there is a possibility they can be served or consumed accidentally.

10. Probably not a hate crime, but absolutely insane that someone could be served bleach water like that.

11. Here’s a question no one is asking

    Do you think this restaurant just keeps containers of diluted bleach on the off chance a Korean comes in so they can attempt to murder them in the most discoverable crime of all time?

12. Let’s see what the investigation says, because considering what many Japanese think of the Koreans, a hate crime cannot be dismissed just because “PeOplE SeE RacSim EVaryWhArE”.

13. This article leaves out the part about the police shutting this place down for 4 days as punishment.

14. I dont think it’s hate crime honestly. Bleach water? That can literally kill people, if they wanted to commit a hate crime there are a lot of other ways.

15. I’m thinking it’s just a horrible accident stemming from sub-standard safety procedures. Ironically things like this happen more in prestigious restaurants since many things are just assumed, even amongst people who work there. If this was a McDonald’s I’m sure everything is placed in it’s specific locations and color coded