The Bay Area takes its burritos seriously. Carnitas or carne asada? Rice or no rice? La Taqueria or El Farolito?

The ongoing debate took a turn this week after a video circulated that shows a man calling the cops on a fellow BART passenger who dared eat a burrito on a train.

"You can't wait?" asks the man, clad in a Hawaiian shirt. "The sign says no eating and drinking. You don't get it."

"You must be stupid," he continues. "I've seen people like you on TV."

The burrito-eater continues to dine, undeterred, while fellow passengers giggle and pull out their phones to film the exchange.

Incensed, the Hawaiian shirt-wearing man stands up and declares, "I'll get the police onboard, how about that?"

He proceeds to shout into the onboard intercom: "Yes, please can we get a policeman onboard? We've got somebody dining. He's eating on the train."

Fellow passengers appeared to side with the burrito man and encouraged him to continue eating. One woman remarked to the angered man, "You must not ride BART that much."

"He's not shooting up," another passenger says.

The altercation appeared to end peacefully, with the burrito-eater disembarking at the next station.

Eating or drinking on BART is indeed illegal, and subject to fines of up to $250, though BART police rarely issue food-related citations. An 2017 SFGATE investigation found officials cited only 11 people in 2016 for eating or drinking on a train or in a "paid area" — that comes out to 8.03 million rides per citation.

When asked how high priority enforcement of the no eating/no drinking rule is for BART, agency media relations manager Jim Allison said one must consider the big picture.

"It's important to view enforcement of any infraction within the larger context of daily activities on BART and not just in isolation," Allison said in an email. "As calls come in about possible violations, BART police prioritize them on the basis of the relative threat to public safety and the resources available. I think you would find this form of 'triage' a common practice among law enforcement agencies."

BART did not return a request for comment regarding the burrito incident.

After the burrito-eating video began circulating Monday, Bay Area Redditors seemed to concede that yes, chowing down on BART is inconsiderate, but calling the police is excessive. After all, they've got bigger issues to worry about, like "used needles," "guys screaming at people," and robberies, the Redditors said.

"I wish he wouldn't eat on BART to be honest. It gets all smelly with food because it's a closed space," one Redditor wrote. "But if I were to say anything ... I'd ask him not to do it and leave it at that."

Others agreed: "This crap happens all the time on commuter trains. You just learn to deal with it and move on with your day. That's why it is so comical to see this guy get so mad over a burrito."

Calling the police on strangers for seemingly minor infractions has become the focal point of discussion in the Bay Area recently.

In May a woman dubbed #BBQBecky made national headlines after calling police on an African American family barbecuing at Lake Merritt in Oakland. The incident inspired a nationwide "barbecuing while black" movement.

More recently a video of a woman calling police on an African American child selling water on a San Francisco sidewalk went viral. The woman, identified as Alison Ettel, resigned Tuesday as CEO of TreatWell Health, a Bay Area cannabis company, following widespread backlash.

SFGATE staff writer Mike Moffitt contributed to this report.

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.

