(NewsNation) — Police in Japan arrested a 21-year-old man accused of putting his mouth on the spout of a sushi restaurant’s communal soy sauce bottle.
A pair of teenagers also were arrested “on suspicion of obstructing the restaurant’s operation,” Japanese public news outlet NHK reported.
It’s just another example of a recent online trend involving people touching other people’s food at Japanese conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, drinking directly from condiment bottles and licking cups and silverware.
The Nagoya, Japan, restaurant Kura Sushi issued a news release Wednesday announcing the arrests of the 21-year-old and two teens, claiming the suspects shared a video of their “nuisance act” on social media last month.
“We hope that this arrest will help to widely recognize that such nuisance acts that undermine the trust relationship with our customers are ‘crimes’ and that there will be no imitators in the future,” the release stated.
Online, the act has been labeled “sushi terrorism.”
A similar trend happened in the U.S. during the advent on the COVID-19 pandemic. Police at the time warned about people licking tubs of ice cream and putting them back on the shelves.