Summary: Chipotle has announced Wednesday they are under criminal investigation.
Chipotle’s unwished for notoriety in 2015 has only lead to further woes in 2016. What began as a widespread outbreak of food-borne illnesses in 2015, forcing the chain to close dozens of restaurants and spend upwards to $16 million to replace food in restaurants, analyze the food in labs, and pay legal fees, has now worked itself up to a full out Subpoena. They announced Wednesday that they are being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Criminal Investigations and they were served a Federal Grand Jury Subpoena from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in December.
“The subpoena requires us to produce a broad range of documents related to a Chipotle restaurant in Simi Valley, California, that experienced an isolated norovirus incident during August 2015,” the company disclosed in a corporate filing.
Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said the company’s policy doesn’t allow them to discuss pending legal actions, but that they are fully cooperating with the investigation.
In November, 43 restaurants closed in Washington and Oregon after 22 cases of E. coli were connected with their restaurants. They have since reopened.
In December, 141 Boston College students contracted norovirus eating in a Brighton, Mass., restaurant.
All this plunged their sales by 30 percent in December, by which point 53 people in nine states were affected by one norovirus strain, and five other people from three different states were hit with another, as the FDA has claimed.
Stock has dropped 33 percent since this time last year.
“We intend to fully cooperate in the investigation. It is not possible at this time to determine whether we will incur, or to reasonably estimate the amount of, any fines, penalties or further liabilities in connection with the investigation pursuant to which the subpoena was issued,” said Chipotle.
Source: BuzzFeed