Thursday, December 20, 2007

It's A Wonderful Life

One more day of private events before Christmas. I still have to work every day but the 25th, including Christmas Eve. I doubt I'll be around long enough to take in the festivities as we host a Jewish Singles event later that night though. Although that really sounds like it's gonna be a laugh-riot. I'll be spending Christmas here in NYC as one day off isn't enough time to hop home and it's right back to work on the 26th.

The following week we'll be open for tourists and people still celebrating as well as those that are winding up for New Year's in Times Square. We're working with some outside promoters and that seems more and more like it's going to be a disaster of biblical proportions.

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Wow. Major interruption as I was writing. A brawl broke out at the bar. Police. EMS. Blood. Broken glass. None of my staff was hurt, thank goodness. I have to get the place closed up and calm everyone down. I'll update tomorrow if there's time.

UPDATE: So the fight. Here's how that went down. It was the end of the night. Kitchen was closed. Only about 20-25 bar customers left. I wasn't in the room. Apparently, there was a group (4 or so) of business suits drinking at the bar. They had come in for drinks after another function. All was well until this mook decided that his bag was missing. We never have determined if he actually came in with the damn thing in the first place, but he was liquored up enough to insist he had and it was missing. You have no idea how many people flat out insist something is lost when they never came in with it in the first place.

Next thing you know the dumb fuck is demanding his bag and up and throws a beer bottle at one of my bar backs. He missed and took out a couple of bottles in display. The sound engineer was close by and grabbed the freak before his friends intervened and took him away from the bar to calm down. He assured them he was fine. Immediately after being released this drunken overgrown fratboy proceeds to take a $500.00 computer kiosk touch screen and smash it on the ground. At this point the police were called and his friends and some good Samaritan customers tried to hustle the asswipe out the door. As they were pushing him towards the elevator the dickwad took one more opportunity to grab a glass from a nearby table and throw it at the head of one of my waiters. With that, at least two of my staff and one bystander tackled the fucker and they all tumbled down a small set of stairs. The dumb ass then smashed his own face down on the carpet, underneath which is concrete, and split open his forehead. A fate he completely deserved.

By then the police had arrived, at which point I came upon the scene. The drunk moron was laying on the floor bleeding like a stuck pig as his friend continued to berate the staff and yell at the police. I honestly thought he had been stabbed at first. While I got the whole story and made sure my people weren't hurt, EMS arrived and began to treat the perp and get him ready to transport. After interviewing staff and customers and taking names and statements, the police pretty much discounted their version where my employees suddenly and without provocation started beating on a patron for no reason, and were instead pretty clear that even though he was now drunk and bleeding on my carpeting, this douche-bag had committed at the least attempted assault, destruction of property and whatever other charges add up to 35 year old alcoholic white guy with rage issues.

In the end, my contacts with the police department tell me he was treated at the hospital and placed under arrest. My employees may have to answer some follow-up questions but there's no trouble for them on that front. I ended up cleaning up all the bloody tablecloths and napkins, as well as all the bandages, saline and plastic gloves the EMS workers discarded at the scene. The night crew was left to quickly shampoo the puddle of blood left in the rug. They did a great job, by the time we re-opened late this afternoon, you could barely see it.

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