Posted on 03/03/2011 11:32:54 PM PST by buccaneer81
Union supporters disrupt GOP senators' restaurant meal Friday, March 4, 2011 12:28 AM By andJim Siegel Kathy Gray The Columbus Dispatch
The volatility surrounding the collective-bargaining debate spilled into the night Wednesday when police were called to a German Village restaurant after a group verbally accosted a gathering of Senate Republicans.
After the vote on Senate Bill 5, seven Republican senators, including President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, grabbed dinner at the Easy Street Cafe. As the lawmakers neared the end of their meal, a group of five to 10 union supporters angry about the passage of the bill hours before burst into the restaurant and began shouting.
The commotion eventually led to pushing and shoving with the restaurant staff and owner, before police arrived to calm the situation as a police helicopter hovered overhead. No senators were involved in the physical altercations, and no charges have been filed.
"It could have (gotten physical)," said Sen. Frank LaRose, 31, a Fairlawn Republican who served as a Green Beret. "The group was agitated and they were shoving the owner, and he had nothing to do with this." Story continues below Advertisement
LaRose said it didn't take special intelligence training to notice that while the lawmakers were eating, a woman walked past the window several times, poked her head in the door and got on her cell phone.
"It was planned," LaRose said. "They gathered as a group and waited until they had about 10 people before they caused a disturbance."
When the group burst into the restaurant, the woman, Monica Moran, deputy director of public affairs for SEIU District 1199, raised her hands in the air, yelled "Can I have your attention?" and then shouted "something nasty," LaRose said. Soon after, the rest of the group of men and women joined in with a chant.
"They stormed through my dining room," said George Stefanidis, owner of the Easy Street Cafe. "I told them they had to leave, and they wouldn't."
Stefanidis said he called 911 when the protesters refused to leave. LaRose said there was pushing and shoving with the restaurant staff. Meanwhile, someone on the outside slapped an anti-Senate Bill 5 sign on the window near where Niehaus was sitting.
"I understand their argument, but they should do that some other place," Stefanidis said. "It just ruined the whole night."
He said about 70 people were in the restaurant, at 197 Thurman Ave., at the time.
Witnesses said Stefanidis and his staff held the group back from the senators.
"I was tempted to help, but us getting involved would have escalated it, not de-escalated it. We decided to stay quiet," LaRose said.
Moran, who is married to a top researcher at the Ohio Republican Party, was unapologetic.
"It is unfortunate that rather than focus on the adverse impact that this legislation will have on hard-working, middle-class Ohioans, there are those who would choose to focus on a conversation I had with Senate Republicans," she said in a written statement to The Dispatch.
"The moment of discomfort Senate Republicans may have felt as a result of my expressing my opinion pales in comparison to the extreme discomfort and financial hardships that public employees will endure as a result of SB5."
Sens. Kevin Bacon of Minerva Park, Keith Faber of Celina, Larry Obhof Jr. of Montville Township, Chris Widener of Springfield and Gayle Manning of North Ridgeville also were at the restaurant. All but Manning voted in favor of Senate Bill 5.
Shoving a restaurateur sounds “physical” enough. Book em on assault and battery.
Fire the husband. How else did she know where they could be vulnerable to attack?
So true. Spittle is very unappetizing.
It sounds like Matalin and Carville.
Gotta get in their face, ya know.
Will be silent and invisible.
The difference between Ohio and WI is that the Ohio GOP passed the anti-union bill. All the unions could do is throw their faggy hissy fit and couldn’t do anything about it except physical confrontation.
It’s like they think there is a money tree in back of the state capitol building. There’s not enough money coming in to the state coffers. They are bettor off then most tax payers.
Funny thing is these idgit socialists make folks hate them more an more with such actions.....
SEIU.... I avoid any company that employs trash like that. Vote with my dollars between elections.
Doom on unions an Erkel Mugabe aka Obama.
Exactly. Old ladies waving flags at a Tea Party rally = “angry mob of extremist demonstrators.”
7.5 million in property damage... yelling, screaming, live ammunition rounds found? Oh, Democrats did it? No story here. Move along...
Battery? It’s a restaurant, not a bakery!
Chris Matthews will be all over this story - count on it!
....When the group burst into the restaurant, the woman, Monica Moran, deputy director of public affairs for SEIU District 1199, raised her hands in the air, yelled "Can I have your attention?" and then shouted "something nasty,"
...Moran,who is married to a top researcher at the Ohio Republican Party, was unapologetic.
I wonder how her husband feels to be married to a RAT??
Anybody see Beck today? ;o)
>> Probably might be wiser for GOP senators in WI to avoid restaurants, period.
They’d be wise to order steak dinners.
They are doing nothing but redistributing the wealth...as they do decree.
When the private unions became weak because employers weren’t exploiting them anymore and stuff, they headed to the local and state governments for “assistance”.
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