80 sickened after eating at a Chipotle in Boston

A Boston Chipotle franchise has been closed by health officials because 80 students became ill with the norovirus after they all ate at the same restaurant.

Lora Rae Anderson, a spokeswoman at the state’s Department of Consumer Protection, said Tuesday that no complaints or reported incidents had been filed regarding Chipotle, which operates 19 locations in the state, including in New Haven, Shelton, Hamden and Milford.

But since late October, Chipotle has temporarily closed restaurants in Washington and OR because of links to an E. coli outbreak.

“There are no reports of illness from any other restaurants, and the pattern here looks like norovirus isolated to one restaurant”, spokesman Chris Arnold told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Boston incident is a “near-term negative reinforcement”, when viewed along with the E. coli incidents in Chipotle’s restaurants and other health-related issues the company has dealt with since the summer, Anderson said.

The source of the tainted food that caused the E. coli outbreaks at Chipotle has not been disclosed.

“Several students have come to [Boston College] Health Services complaining of gastrointestinal symptoms; the common factor among them is that they have all eaten at the [nearby] Chipotle restaurant”, the university said on its website.

The school sent an alert to students, which read, “The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has been notified and is working to determine if there is a link to the ongoing national outbreak of E. coli”.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) said 52 people in nine different states have contracted E. coli in the current outbreak.

Executives said the chain may eventually raise prices to make up for its food safety investments.

Since launching in 1993, Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) has emphasized providing customers with what it calls “Food With Integrity”, which the fast-growing restaurant chain defines on its website as “sourcing the very best ingredients that we can find”.

The company said some of its local produce suppliers might not be able to meet the new standards. And the initial laboratory testing done indicated that norovirus is the cause of the illness. Maxim Group began coverage on shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill in a research report on Tuesday, August 18th. The alternative would have been a much-expanded E. coli O26 outbreak and a unsafe pathogen, not a fast-moving virus.

As of press time on Tuesday, Chipotle shares fell by $9.98 (or 1.8 percent) to $541.77 by midday trading.