Checkers' Fires Employee After Patron Says Drink Tossed On Her; St. Clair Shores Police Investigate

ST. CLAIR SHORES, MI — Police are investigating a possible case of assault at a St. Clair Shores Checkers Restaurant involving an ex-employee and a customer. Ashley Scarlavia, a 26-year-old Detroit resident, alleges she was hit by a red, slushie-style drink thrown at her by the employee on March 4.

St. Clair Shores Det. Brad Berac said an investigation into the incident is on-going. He said the ex-employee, a 39-year-old Detroit woman, could face misdemeanor charges of assault and malicious destruction of property. Both crimes are punishable by a maximum of 93 days in jail.

Berac said the incident occurred at about 2:30 Saturday afternoon at the Checkers located on Harper Avenue near Ridgeway Road. Scarlavia did not respond to an interview request by the Patch.

She did describe the incident in detail in a lengthy Facebook post, however. She wrote that she had five kids in her car when she pulled up to the Checkers’ drive through to place an order. After more than 20 minutes of waiting, Scarlavia wrote that she complained to the employee that her order had not been taken and that her car was blocked in line and she couldn’t leave.

After an exchange, minutes later Scarlavia wrote that she drove by the drive through window with her window down. She said the employee through the frozen drink at her as she drove by. Scarlavia wrote that she was “drenched” and the interior of her car stained.

She then called police and filed a report. For its part, Checkers fired the employee a few days later and issued an apology: "As soon as we learned about the incident, we immediately investigated. The employee involved has been terminated and we apologize to the guest and her children. The action taken by this employee does not meet our high standards of guest service, and we are retraining the entire crew on conflict resolution and service excellence."

Here’s Scarlavia’s Facebook post in full:

Photo by CPOA via Flickr Commons