Responsible Alcohol Service Training + California's Fast Recovery Act + Chipotle + Employee Retention Tax Credit + One-Star Reviews

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drunk driving remains the leading cause of death on our nation’s roads: "Every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in drunk driving crashes – that’s one person every 48 minutes in 2017… In 2010, the most recent year for which cost data is available, these deaths and damages contributed to a cost of $44 billion that year."

Indeed, it’s crucial that everyone comprehends that it’s not just about drinking and driving. In fact, recent analytics provided by the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics demonstrate that far more people are injured or die due to slips, trips, falls, sexual assault, violence, suicides and so forth, and due to the overindulgence or overservice of alcohol, than driving while intoxicated. Add to this the ubiquity of guns in the United States; then Russian Roulette is the name of the game that our society is playing.

No matter how impeccable service a restaurant provides, chances are it will still receive negative online reviews from time to time. Recently, some top-rated restaurants in San Francisco and New York, including those with Michelin stars, began receiving a blitz of one-star ratings on Google with no description or photos (Morales, 2022). The owners believed those leaving one-star ratings had never dined in their establishments. Moreover, soon after the reviews, they all received emails from the reviewers who claimed the responsibility.

What did the reviewers want by leaving one-star Google ratings?

The reviewers asked the restaurants to pay them a $75 Google Play gift card before they would remove the ratings. If they did not receive the gift card, they would add more bad ratings to the business.