An altercation on the street outside carried over to inside of the Kitchen on the Ridge Restaurant Tuesday after a pepper-spray incident early in the afternoon.
Somebody chased two men along Lougheed Highway and peppers prayed them outside in the restaurant’s doorway at 224th Street.
Those fumes then wafted in through the windows and forced about seven diners to leave.
They were offered ambulances, but were all OK, said waitress Jennifer Burton.
“It wasn’t an attack on us,” it was somebody coming after someone else, she explained.
The Maple Ridge Fire Department then came in and used fans to ventilate the restaurant, said added.
Firefighters and ambulance treated two victims outside. They then left on their own.
Burton said she hasn’t noticed an increase in crime in the area following the opening of the temporary homeless shelter, a block down the street.
“We’ve always had homeless in Maple Ridge.”
She said, though, there was increase in crime during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Ridge Meadows RCMP didn’t comment.
