STORRS –The teenager at the center of the infamous UConn mac and cheese meltdown has come forward and issued an apology.
In a 2 1/2 minute long video posted to his YouTube account, Luke Gatti, 19, of Bayville, New York, apologizes for arguing with the staff at the Union Street Market in the Student Union, who refused to serve him bacon jalapeno mac and cheese because he seemed intoxicated and had an open container of alcohol with him.
“I want to start by apologizing to all the staff involved…especially the manager. He was just doing his job. He gave me so many chances to walk away, and I didn’t listen to him,” Gatti said. “No one deserves to be treated that way, ever.”
Gatti goes on to say he couldn't believe it was him in the video when he saw it a few days later, and that he is ashamed.
"I've got some problems that I am addressing. This was serious a wake-up call," Gatti mentions. This is the third incident in which Gatti has been arrested for disorderly conduct since September 2014--the first two incidents occurred in the fall of 2014 when he was a student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst location.
He continued on with his apologies, calling out his family and friends and saying he disappointed them despite their support of him over the years. He also apologized to UConn as a whole.
"I'd like to apologize to the university student body for representing it so poorly. It's completely not what UConn is all about."
The 19-year-old ends his apology by saying that instead of sending him mac and cheese, people should donate the food to their local food pantries. "There's a lot of hungry people out there," he said.
