COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A Columbus man claims to have received more than a meal during a recent stop at a local fast food chain, prompting an investigation by city health officials.
Columbus Public Health temporarily shut down the McDonald’s on 619 Harrisburg Pike after filing a food inspection report on Wednesday. The department conducted the inspection after a Columbus man reported finding a crack pipe in his meal. In an additional inspection on Thursday, the store was cleared to re-open.
Luther Tibbs told NBC4 he went Tuesday to his nearby McDonald’s location for a quick bite like any other day. However, once he had paid for his food and driven away, he said that he found an object that he claimed resembled a crack pipe.
“We ordered our food, pull up, pay, pull to the next window, get our food, pull up and there’s a crack pipe,” Tibbs said.
Tibbs said that he then pulled back up to the store to raise his concerns to the manager, who denied that the object had come from the McDonald’s location’s staff.
The inspection report from Columbus Public Health appeared to confirm Tibbs’ had made a complaint against the store, but the McDonald’s claimed to not know how the object appeared in the order. The report outlined the following timeline for Tibbs’ Tuesday visit:
- At 9:15 a.m., Tibbs placed an order at the drive-thru window. The general manager, a six-year employee of the store, stated that she packed the order and double-folded the bag before passing it to a 10-year employee, who handed it to the customer.
- At 10:18 a.m., the customer drove back to the window to tell the workers he found a crack pipe in the bag. A supervisor, who was a 20-year employee of the restaurant, went outside to collect the customer’s complaint.
- At 10:30 a.m., Tibbs returned to the McDonald’s drive-thru window on foot to inquire about a solution.
- Between 10:30 and 11 a.m., the supervisor contacted police before the customer left the premises.
An image of the receipt shared with NBC4 showed the order time as 9:51 a.m., not 9:15.
The inspection report said that investigators had observed the following while on the McDonald’s property:
- Heavy construction being performed on the restaurant seating area, front service counter, and beverage service station.
- Construction workers moving freely through the food prep areas and the customer seating area
- Construction equipment, debris, trash, and dust present throughout the store
- Beverage service equipment such as a soda dispenser, frappuccino machine, and more with dust, debris, screws, unassembled computer equipment and wooden trim pieces on the top surfaces
- Personal cell phones on top of the grill
- No protective barrier between the construction and food service areas
The report did not confirm or deny whether the object found in the bag was a crack pipe, but Columbus Public Health told NBC4 that the inspection was on the facility. Inspectors did not come to any conclusions about the object that started the complaint.
At the McDonald’s location the store appeared to give mixed messages as to whether it was open. Signs that read “drive thru open” and “lobby closed” were displayed outside of the fast food chain. One McDonald’s employee told NBC4 that the drive thru was currently closed, but that it would reopen shortly. Another person who appeared to be a McDonald’s employee said that the restaurant had not been shut down and that the drive thru was briefly closed for construction, but that it would be open within the day.
After passing inspection, the McDonald’s reopened as of 12 p.m. Thursday, according to Columbus Public Health.