A Guelph restaurant owner was shocked after a man was caught on video walking away with a bottle of hand sanitizer available to customers just minutes before returning to pick up some free food.
He was even more surprised when the man called back begging forgiveness.
The incident happened Wednesday evening at Kirtida Kitchen on Eramosa Road and was caught on the store's video camera.
Hitesh Jagad, who co-owns the store with his wife Kirtida, posted the video on social media, which was shared by Mayor Cam Guthrie and many others. The comments were not kind.
****WATCH THIS #GUELPH****
— Mayor Cam Guthrie (@CamGuthrie) April 17, 2020
He’s 5’8”
Black hair
Hipster’ish clothing
165 pounds
Perfectly clean hands and smells of Lysol.
Also, an idiot.
****LET’S FIND HIM #GUELPH**** https://t.co/THCV7el71H
But after the video began to pick up attention and views, a man identifying himself as the person that took the sanitizer called Jagad early Friday afternoon to apologize and ask him to take the video down, which Jagad did.
"He called me four times and said how sorry he was. That it would ruin his life if the video was out there," Jagad said.
"What can you do. He is young. He made a mistake. He was very apologetic."
Jagad says he has still filed an online report with Guelph Police.
Police spokesperson Const. Kyle Grant said he couldn't comment on whether a complaint has been filed due to privacy concerns.
"I would encourage anyone who is the victim of a crime to file a report with the Guelph Police Service. If the victim of a crime has video of the crime, I would recommend they provide the video to the police rather than posting it on the internet," Grant said.
What upset Jagad the most is that the man had called in to complain about food he and his roomate had ordered earlier in the day and were unsatisfied with. Jagad said he offered to refund the man his money or give him another order for free, which the person chose.
On the day he stole the sanitizer he came back in and happily accepted $27 worth of free food.
"After two minutes, he walked in again and picked up his free food," says Jagad.
The incident happened Wednesday night but Jagad says he didn't realize the sanitizer was gone until another customer asked where the sanitizer was the next day. Kirtida Kitchen has a sign with the bottle on the counter asking customers to sanitize their hands.
The co-owner and his wife were in the back preparing food when the man came in.
"I said 'oh my goodness, somebody has taken it,'" Jagad said.
The video showed a young man enter the restaurant, go to use the hand sanitizer, then quickly look around before grabbing the bottle and walking out the door.
Jagad says he is disheartened that somebody would do such a thing at a time when people need to be kind to one another.
He said Kirtida's Kitchen has done a lot of positive things in the community lately, giving free food to several charitable causes such as the Food Bank and Drop In Centre and other individuals who are struggling that have reached out through the temple he and his family attend.
"The thought that this is how people are abusing the good causes we and other people are doing, it is upsetting," Jagad said.
"Things happen. When you do something good, something bad also happens."
