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.
They invaded private property with intent to cause ...a riot?
Assault, battery, trespass, criminal intent...
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.
The unions had better be careful, because they escalate this it is sedition.
They are not butting up against some company here, but the lawful government.
If the police/firefighters etc. won’t do their jobs...well there is always the National Guard and dare I say it...the militias.
These people have no class.
None.
Let’s give them a ring...
SEIU 1199
Columbus Office
1395 Dublin Rd.
Columbus, OH 43215
P: 614.461.1199 or 800.227.1199
I read on REDSTATE that the SEIU was $85 million in debt and may go under. Of course they will seek a bailout from Obama. Story at http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/03/04/good-newsbad-news-about-seiu-going-broke/
The union leaders don’t care about that. If enough of these stories leak out, they figure they can intimidate enough elected officials to get their way.
It’s the Obama Brotherhood Media.
ping
I guess the Ohio thugs haven’t gotten the concern for our “image” message that has suddenly stricken the Wisconsin thugs.
Well, Ohio’s thugs haven’t been ‘protesting’ as long as the WI thugs. There IS a learning curve after all.
I'm not suggesting they run and hide. I am, however, suggest they avoid eating a maliciously hawked-up loogie spat into their food.
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