A DoorDash driver who was caught on camera appearing to spit into an Ontario man’s drink has been removed from the platform, the food delivery company has confirmed.
On Friday, Sept. 27, George Bishay of Whitby, Ont. said he placed an order through DoorDash after he and his wife were up all night tending to their two-year-old immunocompromised son who was battling the flu.
“It’s his favorite drink that we get when we go out sometimes. Let’s order it from DoorDash, like we always do, and to kind of cheer him up and hydrate him, because he was really dehydrated,” Bishay recalled in an interview with CTV News Toronto on Thursday.
Bishay said he placed the order, tipped the delivery driver 18 per cent through the app, and waited for the drinks to arrive at their home.
He said his wife was monitoring the app while waiting for the drinks and noticed that although the driver had arrived at their address, the order wasn’t immediately showing up as delivered. Thinking that was odd, Bishay said she checked their front-door surveillance camera footage in real time.
“So she went to look at our camera, and she’s like, ‘Oh my God. Did he just sneeze on our drink?’ And then after she played it back, she goes, ‘Oh my god, he lifted the lid and he spit in it,’” Bishay recalled.
Stunned, Bishay said he “bolted” to the front door to confront the driver, but he had already left. After checking the drink seals applied by the restaurant, Bishay confirmed that one had been broken.
Bishay contacted the driver through the app, who he said apologized and agreed to return to the residence with two new drinks, at his own expense. At that point, Bishay called police.
When the driver returned, video filmed by Bishay’s wife shows him confronting the driver and asking him why he spat in the drink.
“Why? I want to know why you did it,” Bishay says vehemently.
“I don’t know,” he responds, after apologizing and explaining that his two children were waiting in the car.
DoorDash calls experience ‘appalling’
In a statement to CTV News Toronto, a DoorDash spokesperson called the driver’s behavior “completely unacceptable.”
“DoorDash does not condone any tampering with customer orders, as food safety is one of our top priorities. The Dasher in question has been deactivated from our platform and the customer has been refunded for this appalling experience,” the statement read.
The Durham Regional Police Service confirmed that officers attended the scene and spoke with both Bishay and the suspect following the incident. They said that the individual who delivered the drinks was charged with failing to properly secure his two children in the vehicle, which carries a set fine of $200 and two demerit points apiece.
CTV News Toronto has blurred the delivery driver’s face in the video above as he has not been publicly identified by police.
In Bishay’s view, he said he thinks the charges laid by police don’t go far enough, and that the suspect should have been charged with assault. As for DoorDash’s response, he said the food delivery service could have done more to prevent this from happening.
“This issue is so serious, and I’m worried about other people’s kids,” he said, adding that the company could benefit from introducing better ways to ensure deliveries are not tampered with.
“This is food we’re dealing with here. It’s not like a lawn service or anything like that. This is food that people are consuming in their bodies when we’re still dealing with COVID-19.”