INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Obama Makes Unsanitary Mistake at Chipotle

By Benjamin Simon
Published on: 08:23 PST, Jun 24, 2014

President Obama recently visited a Chipotle restaurant near the White House to order a burrito, which is something he apparently does often. While placing his order, Obama made one mistake that photographers caught on camera. He reached over the sneeze guard.

The glass shields in front of Chipotle’s burrito-making station are there to protect the food from the germs of customers, especially customers with colds or other contagious illnesses. President Obama is now being criticized for blatantly disregarding sanitation rules by overreaching the sneeze guard and putting the fresh food in the firing line of his germs.

It’s very likely that Obama didn’t have a cold and that nobody will get sick from this faux pas, but critics of the president are using this as an excuse to point out a lack of a certain kind of common courtesy that the President of the United States of America should have.

E! Online reported on the incident, calling Obama’s mistake a severe breach in dining etiquette. According to E!, Obama was grabbing lunch before addressing the White House Summit on Working Families. He may have been in a hurry, but does that excuse Obama from reaching over the sneeze guard?

The photo was first tweeted by White House photographer Pete Souza, according to the Washington Post. There was an immediate backlash to the photo. Many tweets came in pointing out Obama’s mistake. One Twitter user even tweeted at Chipotle directly and got a reply. Chipotle promised to “make sure that Mr. President is well aware of our restaurant’s guidelines!”

You can see some of the response tweets below:

What do you think? Is Obama’s mistake a big deal? He’s made some mistakes before that some say are worthy of impeachment, but surely a restaurant faux pas is no cause for alarm.

Share this article: Obama Makes Unsanitary Mistake at Chipotle
United States
More from Inquisitr