On the night of July 4 in Lake Elsinore, California, a 22 year old woman licked two donuts and spit on two more at an independent shop. Normally something like this would merit some sort of arrest, even if it is only on misdemeanor charges. In this occasion, the culprit in question is pop star Ariana Grande. Compounding the problem is the fact that video captured her saying, "What the f*** is that? I hate Americans. I hate America."
While a large portion of America did go after the singer for her actions and words, a large segment also defended her actions or claimed that they were taken out of context despite the video appearing on the news and online in its entirety without edits. Her fans claimed she was being victimized by an overzealous media. The real victim, at least initially in all of this is that Wolfee Donuts took a hit from the Riverside County Health Department, a hit on their shrink (lost dollars for those unsure of that term), and for many others siding with Grande, a hit on their business reputation.
The incident occurred late at night (the donut shop is open 24 hours) while the staff was in the process of making more donuts for the next business day. An employee, excited that the platinum selling artist was in her shop, showed Grande the freshly made donuts at the star's request. While Grande asked to see more donuts, the employee left the trays she originally brought out on top of the glass display case. This is not what they normally do, but a star struck employee made the mistake. There was no way for the employee to know that someone who has performed all over the world, was about to commit a crime that would cost the shop four dollars...initially.
Video leaked out and shop owner Joe Marin tried to press charges initially. Instead of charges ever being placed against Grande, the health department showed up at the shop and downgraded their health rating to a B. It may not sound bad right off hand as many students would gladly take a B as a grade in a class, but for a restaurant, it's extremely bad.
In a move to save her reputation, Grande released two different apologies, neither of which apologized to the owner of Wolfee Donuts. Instead, she addressed the issue of the hating America comments. She tried to say it's because of her issues with Americans and their eating habits, but no apology to the shop owner. Instead, her move was to save face with the rest of America, essentially playing damage control for her career.
At one point, her publicity team even tried to say that in the video, she is misquoted because they claimed she said, "I hate bear claws." Watch the video and judge for yourself. It's easy to hear what she really said.
Many in the local community rallied behind the donut shop thought. The Lake Elsinore Storm even held a promotional night on July 15, giving away a 1,000 donuts to those in attendance. Grande supporters complained that Wolfee Donuts gained sales because of the incident, but it's probably not the way Marin would have liked to do this, especially while it damaged his shop's health rating.
In the second apology video that Grande posted online, people expected for her to finally apologize to the shop for her actions, but she never did. She doubled-down on stupid and continued to talk about her personal issues with American eating habits.
Another side issue that arose was that it started to be reported by almost every news source that covered the incident, that Marin dropped the charges. This too is wrong. In an interview on Toronto's KISS 92.5, Marin stated that he never dropped the charges, but instead the authorities had decided that they would not charge her with a crime. They asked Marin what the cost of each donut was and he responded that they cost a dollar a piece, causing a total of four dollars in physical damage. Indecisive on what to charge her with, the authorities dropped the charges and Marin won't get his justice from Grande.
While it may only be four dollars in damage, this still has to be an arrestable offense. If a regular Joe Schmo caused four dollars of damage in any restaurant or retail shop, they can be charged with a misdemeanor. So why not Grande? It may carry only a minor slap on the wrist, but the process of the whole legal situation should hopefully be enough to detour Grande from pulling more childish pranks like that. She's 22 years old. Despite looking like a 12 year old, she should have enough of a brain to know what she did is wrong and that there are repercussions to what she did. Letting her go free only emboldens her to possibly do other childish pranks in the future, much like how Justin Bieber has continually acted like a kid.
But most of all, Marin is owed a direct apology from Grande. She has yet to do this and until she does, she will have proven to the public that she has not learned anything from her stunts that hurt a small business owner.
Photo of Wolfee Donuts by author Daniel Millhouse
Photo of Ariana Grande is a screencap from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show
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