Two women who spoke out after a man became belligerent at a White Rock restaurant late Thursday say they are now both recovering from being punched in the face.
Dawn Campbell said she and a friend were paying their bill at the West Beach Bar & Grill around midnight when a man “came bursting in,” yelling at the owner.
“He was right in our face,” Campbell, 44, told Peace Arch News Friday, shortly after returning from having X-rays done to assess the damage to her jaw.
“He was kind of yelling through us, to him.”
Things escalated when the women felt the man’s comments had crossed a line and they told him “OK, you need to leave now,” Campbell said.
“He just punched my friend and she went down, and so I stood up in front of her, like in between them…, and he just punched me and I went down. And she got up again and he punched her probably five more times, even while she was down,” Campbel said. “Just went crazy.”
Achhar Parmar, owner of West Beach Bar & Grill, said he knew the assailant from a music night that is held weekly at the restaurant. He said the man became upset when Parmar said he couldn’t expand the program.
“Two ladies were sitting there and they said, why are you doing like this? He was cussing bad words,” Parmar said, noting he told the man to go home and that they could talk tomorrow.
“But he (didn’t) want to go,” Parmar said. “And then the girls, they got up, they said ‘no, no please you go outside.’ And then he pushed them, and he hit the one lady, on her face.”
Campbell and Parmar said the assailant was driven away from the restaurant before police arrived.
He said that while the two women were “OK,” he said does not expect next Thursday’s weekly program to go ahead.
“I don’t think so,” he said, describing what transpired as “not right.”
Campbell agreed.
“I think it’s important to share,” she said, of the incident. “Men are not supposed to go around punching women. All he had to do was turn around and leave. He just lashed out.”
Campbell said police told her Friday afternoon that they were still trying to locate the assailant.
White Rock RCMP were not immediately available to comment.
