(Memphis) A family involved in a brawl at an East Memphis Chili’s restaurant plans on filing charges against the restaurant’s hostess.
The family says their 17-year-old may have scars for life because the hostess hit her across the face with a bottle.
The family says it was the hostess that had the attitude and started the physical violence but witnesses have a different story to tell.
“The hostess is innocent!” said Witness Teresa Smith.
Smith may be smiling but when drinks and tables were flying at Chili’s Friday night it wasn’t so funny, “The middle table was pretty much on the bar.”
Juanita Jones isn’t laughing, “We want to press charges against her first of all.”
Jones says the hostess left her niece’s face bloodied and scarred, “They took her to the hospital with a broken nose and she got stitches on six parts of her face.
The fight started over seating.
Jones says it was her 50th birthday party and Chili’s could not accommodate all of her guests.
She says the hostess got an attitude when the guests started talking about going somewhere else.
“My other sister approached her and said who are you hollering at?” said Jones. “The hostess began to use her hands saying, ‘It’s whatever. It’s whatever’.”
“I began to turn my back and was talking to my sister and I heard something go ‘boom!’”
Jones says the hostess pushed her 17-year-old niece Ashley Lee to the ground and when Lee got up, the hostess hit her across the face with a wine bottle and then a glass mug.
“She just hit her,” said Smith.
Witnesses agree the hostess hit the teenager but Smith says she understands why.
“The hostess had every right to protect herself,” said Smith.
But Jones insists her dinner party wasn’t to blame, “Believe me, we know how to act. We don’t do things like that.”
Jones says her sister-in-law plans to file charges against the hostess.
“We will not sweep it under the rug,” said Jones. “We will not sweep it under the rug.
So far, neither the hostess nor anyone else in the dinner party has been arrested for this brawl. Police are still calling it an “ongoing investigation”.
