Woman charges restaurant for missing teeth
(Shenzhen Daily)
Updated: 2005-04-07 10:28

A woman wants a restaurant to cough up compensation after one of the waitresses threw away her denture with a cup of tea it had been soaking in, the Guangzhou Daily reported Wednesday.

The woman, surnamed Huang, said she wasn't used to the new denture so she took it off to wash in a cup of tea before her dinner arrived.

"I later found the cup had been replaced with a new one, what's worse, my denture was gone." Huang said.

Huang blamed the waitress, saying she couldn't have known the denture was in there when she took the cup away.

She charged the restaurant 8,000 yuan (US$967) — showed on the invoice she kept — as compensation for her lost denture. But the restaurant won't cough up.

"It is not our fault. She shouldn't wash her denture in the cup without our consent, the waitress didn't know Huang's denture was in the cup, and Huang didn't stop her from changing the cup," an official from the restaurant said.

Guangzhou Consumers Council backed the restaurant, saying it is not responsible for Huang's loss.

"It is not sanitary to wash denture in the cup at the restaurant, which will affect other consumers' health," said an official from the Guangzhou Consumers Council.

It is customary for Guangzhou's restaurant diners to wash their bowl and chopsticks with hot tea before dinner to kill viruses.