In Japan, there is an interesting format of restaurants where food on plates passes in front of customers on a conveyor belt, the restaurant guests take the dishes they like, and then they pay for what they have eaten. On the whole, it is an interesting format that allows you to reduce costs and make food more affordable.
But there is a weakness in the concept itself. Local hooligans began to amuse themselves by taking any dish, licking it and putting it back, someone just touches the food with dirty hands, the main thing to spoil the dish somehow and inconspicuously put it back. One hooligan even thought of slipping sleeping pills into the sushi, but luckily he was caught.
It all started spontaneously and as the police assume the wave was started by a (undisclosed name) video-blogger who first shot a video where he licked the sushi and put it back, which probably started a wave of peculiar entertainment among teenagers.
Japanese hooligans have so plagued conveyor belt sushi restaurants that they've even been coined the nickname "licker."
The restaurants themselves say that they are suffering losses, and to regain the trust of their customers they have taken measures, some have started using special disposable containers so that the dishes cannot be packed back, some have added sensors that will beep if someone decides to return the dishes.
But trust is hard to regain, and many regular customers have decided to put off going to a place like this for now, because they don't know what else such hooligans can come up with.