Video shows masked Ootoya employee exposing self in kitchen

TOKYO (TR) – A video uploaded to the internet shows a male employee at an outlet of restaurant chain Ootoya exposing himself in the kitchen, the latest of several similar incidents to emerge since earlier this month.

The clip shows the employee, who is wearing a mask but no pants, covering his lower body with a tray before pulling it away to expose himself. The person who is believed to have filmed the incident can be heard laughing in the clip.

The operator of the chain, Tokyo-based Ootoya Holdings Co. Ltd., said that a customer informed them of the existence of the clip on Saturday.

“We will take this recent incident seriously and continue to work toward providing guidance [to employees] to prevent a recurrence and restore trust,” the company said in an apology posted on its web site the same day. It added that it is in the process of confirming the persons involved.

The incident involving Ootoya, whose outlets serve a variety of fish and noodle dishes, is only the latest in a series involving food-related companies this month.

On February 14, a clip emerged online that showed a male employee at an outlet of convenience store chain 7-Eleven spitting a food item back into an oden hot pot.

Three days before, convenience store operator Family Mart Co. announced the dismissal of a male employee of an outlet in Kariya City, Aichi Prefecture after he was shown in a video to have licked several items before placing them in a bag.

On February 7, Seven Eleven Japan announced the dismissal of two other male employees after an online video showed one of them using chopsticks to eat noodles direct from an oden pot in an outlet of 7-Eleven.

Two weeks ago, two employees of large sushi chain Kura Sushi resigned after the emergence of a video online that showed them tossing a sliced fish into the trash and pulling it back onto a cutting board in the kitchen of an outlet in Osaka Prefecture.