this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
80 points (79.0% liked)

Canada

7206 readers
446 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Communities


🍁 Meta


🗺️ Provinces / Territories


🏙️ Cities / Local Communities


🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


💻 Universities


💵 Finance / Shopping


🗣️ Politics


🍁 Social and Culture


Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca/


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A visitor from the U.S. got more than they asked for at a Toronto hotel restaurant when they ordered a cheeseburger on Monday night that was served with a waiver on the side.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 91 points 10 months ago (8 children)

After reading the article, I'm on the hotel's side.

If someone asks for meat to be prepared in a way that Health Canada says is below the optimal temperature to kill pathogens, then the customer is putting themselves at risk and should bare any liability.

If someone asked for unpasteurized milk, raw eggs, or live seafood, I'd expect them to get the same waiver.

Seems quite sensible.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 20 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I would be as well were it not for one small detail, and it's that the waiver was presented after they started eating.

[–] malle_yeno@pawb.social 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

No, still on the restaurants side. Like yes, it was a mistake and they should have presented it earlier, but asking for a burger to be done medium isn't a common thing here in Canada. They might not have thought about the waiver until then.

Edit: my point here is that this article is presenting the waiver itself as some kind of wrongdoing or indictment about the restaurant's quality/safety. To me, this seems wrongheaded and the timing of the waiver being brought out seems more like "whoops we forgor" thing than a "desperately covering our ass" thing -- since again, medium burgers aren't really a thing here.

I'm not going to fault the hotel for trying their best to please customer requests and the customer being Pikachu shock faced when he's asked to not sue the restaurant for accommodating his McDeath Burger extra value meal.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago

That was a mistake, I'm sure. Puts the hotel at a greater liability (i.e. the customer refuses to sign), but someone eating undercooked meat would already know the risks, so this wouldn't stop them from eating it.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] bluebadoo@lemmy.world 90 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Title feels a bit click-baity, but truly I think the waiver is reasonable. If you want food prepared outside our food safety standards and laws, you should have to waive the right to sue if you get yourself sick and die. Whether it will actually hold in court is contestable.

[–] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Or the restaurant could say "no we dont do this"

[–] bluebadoo@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Absolutely. One could argue that the restaurant went out of its way to provide a customer food request, but many restaurants refuse to cook ground beef at anything below well-done.

Personally, as a Canadian, I would never eat anything less than that for a hamburger, but I cook my steaks near blue at home.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] anavrinman@lemmynsfw.com 14 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I'm an American living in Canada and I think the law and mentality around it are silly.

That said, you're right. Those are the codified rules, and because they are codified, the hotel has taken the necessary steps to protect themselves, while going out of their way to provide this to their customer. They could have just told them no, just like every other establishment does.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Cagi@lemmy.ca 50 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Here in BC, anything but well done burgers are illegal in restaurants. We have steak tartar, but you need to cut the exterior layer of meat away and grind it right before serving. You might get away with doing the same for burgers, but no one does it that I know of.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Templa@beehaw.org 31 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I worked at Outback Steakhouse (outside the US) and we were never allowed to serve burgers that weren't well done. I've had to explain many times that it is due to the risk of illness from uncooked/processed meat and people still choose to be upset.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I thought the science says a steak can safely be rare, but not hamburger? Still a weird thing to get upset about. Although I've been to dinner with people I thought were reasonable only for them to turn into fuckheads with waiters. I think some people just get really dickish when they are customers. Fuck em.

[–] OldTellus@lemmy.ca 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Its any ground meat. Bacteria cant penetrate a steak to contaminate it, so as long as the outside is cooked enough its safe. When you grind up meat to expose all of the meat to outside conditions, plus any bacteria left on the grinders themselves, so it has to be fully cooked.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago

I'm a guy who likes a medium-rare burger and loves mett and I know the risks involved since it's ground meat with tons of surface area and I don't blame the hotel one bit and would have signed the waiver unlike this prima Donna.

[–] Stanley_Pain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why has this been making some of the "news" recently?

Some corporation wanted to cover it's ass in the same my my work cafeteria warns about raw eggs when they serve Tiramisu.

I had to sign a waiver to try some hot sauce that was 2.5M+ on the Scoville scale.

[–] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 42 points 10 months ago (2 children)

None of these waivers hold up in court here in Canada, like, at all.

The hot sauce ones are generally just trying to make things feel "more extreme", trying to add theatrics to the experience.

[–] athos77@kbin.social 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It wouldn't even hold up in this case: the waiver holds Hilton not liable when the guest eats food not prepared by the restaurant, when the guest is clearly eating food prepared by the restaurant.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml 26 points 10 months ago

Oh fuck off, your stupid and unsafe eating habits are your own fucked up problems, the hotel has nothing to do with this. Of course it's a Redditor too, fucking weirdos, holy hell

[–] Grass@sh.itjust.works 21 points 10 months ago

Waiver should have been brought up when he requested the burger undercooked, but otherwise I see no issue.

[–] delial@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 10 months ago (20 children)

Dumb American disgusted by his own stupidity

[–] BurningRiver@beehaw.org 14 points 10 months ago (4 children)

He’s stupid because he ordered a burger how he likes it (and probably normally orders it), starts eating it, then they ask him to sign a waiver after he’s taken a few bites?

Sorry friend, I’m not sure he’s the stupid one here. If the waiter had told him that he needs to sign a waiver before they put the order in, that’s one thing. Doing it after they cooked it to order and he started eating is where the real stupidity occurs.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (19 replies)
[–] vaseltarp@lemmy.basedcount.com 10 points 10 months ago (6 children)

In Germany they sell ground beef that is save to eat raw. So either get save meat or, if your ground beef is not safe, bring this up directly when someone orders a medium or rare burger and not after the person already started eating.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The only thing is why not get the waiver with the appetizer, before it's served or together? That's the negligence on the Hilton Restaurant's part and really doesn't have meaning if this user did happen to get E.Coli. Ordering medium ground beef at a non-specialty venue is kind of stupid to begin with.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The waiver should have been produced after ordering and well before any food arrives.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ulkesh@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago

First, the waiver should have been provided prior to serving the meal.

Second, and off topic, Toronto Pearson area seems fraught with problems. From second-hand experience of a family member, they got delayed by 11 hours after the 3 hour layover, simply because the airport apparently doesn’t know what electric surge protection is (that was their excuse, that a surge occurred in the airport grounding their plane).

Last, anyone who wants less-than-well-done meat should expect a semblance of risk and expect the restaurant will want to legally protect themselves. But it’s pretty shitty to get the waiver after being served.

So as a throwback to the AITA subreddit…ESH.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

Technically you can cook a hamburger to medium and have it be safe to eat, but I really don't see most restaurants doing sous vide for hamburgers.

load more comments
view more: next ›