5th February 2023 – (Gion, Kyoto) On 2nd February , the Kyoto Prefectural Police arrested a man on suspicion of “falsely obstructing business” i.e. obstructing business by deception. In 2021, the customer contacted a Kyoto restaurant in Gion, Kyoto by phone, claiming that all other restaurants had rejected his request as he wanted to book a puffer fish (Fugu) set meal for 13 people that night (around 13,000 yen (HK$777) per person). However, after the restaurant has prepared all the ingredients to cook, the man did not show up as scheduled. The restaurant failed to contact him in the end, so it decided to call the police for help. After more than a year, the police finally arrested the man, but he denied the accusation, saying that he “just forgot to cancel the reservation”.
Some netizens said that since the phone reservation was made to facilitate the restaurant to prepare the dishes that night as it was a set meal of puffer fish for 13 people, but the perpetrator later claimed that the incident happened because he simply forgot to cancel the reservation, which is really unreasonable and most likely to be a prank.