Video: McDonald's Employee Throws Drink On Disruptive Customer In Australia

A video of McDonald's staff retaliating against an unruly customer in Sydney, Australia has gone viral online. A staff member, who was standing at the counter at the fast food chain's Wynyard store in Sydney's Central Business District was captured on camera throwing a drink at a furious customer who then started throwing food back at staff members. The incident took place on June 15, as per News.com.au

The video was shared by Brown Cardigan on Instagram. Since being shared a day ago, it has amassed 1.1 million views and more than 38,000 likes. 

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"Not Happy Meal," said a person. "Whatever the customer did, the staff was not allowed to throw the coffee on him, it's dangerous and hot," added a second user.

Another person stated that they had also seen a different version of the same video. "I have seen another video of this and the customer spit on the McDonald's worker and then he got a coffee to the face - pretty fair if you ask me. If you spit at me I'm going to throw a whole meal at you not just a drink."

McDonald's Australia said in a statement that for staff to act in retaliation is "not in accordance" with its policies. However, they said that there is more to the story than simply shown in the video. "What is not shown in the video is the customer earlier entering the restaurant and going behind the counter to disrupt the kitchen and threaten crew," they added.

The company stated that they will take up the matter with the franchise. "The behaviour of our employees in this video is not in accordance with our policies and we are looking into this with the restaurant. Anti-social behaviour is not tolerated in our restaurants and we expect our people to be treated with respect at all times "We will always do our best for our customers, but we won't accept abuse, intimidation, threats or violence towards our employees," McDonald's said. 

As per the outlet, police in New South Wales said that they went to the Wynyard station store after finding that a 23-year-old man had been assaulted. The police later detained a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old for the same.