At least we got to keep their food...

[customersruinmylife]

It was 7pm, and it was just starting to get busy in the pub. A large group came in and they call ordered food. It's ready, and me and a co-worker are just about to take it out, when we hear:

SC: COME ON THEN!! I'LL KILLLLLLLLLLLLL YOUUUUU!!!

We run out the kitchen, and see four guys fighting in the middle of the pub. A few of the group are trying to stop the fight by pushing them outside, but they are still yelling foul mouthed insults at each other.

SC: YOU FUCKER! I'LL KILL YOU! COME ON THEN! LET'S FIGHT!

My boss, who is quite a small lady, jumped in, and she has one hell of a voice in her!

Boss: NO YOU WON'T! NOT IN MY PUB! OUT! ALL OF YOU! OUT!

My boss, another manager and a couple of co-workers shove them outside where they start having a massive brawl! A co-worker was on the phone to the cops, while me and another went around, checking on the other customers, making sure they hadn't been caught up in it. It was only 7pm and there were still families in the pub!

The fight eventually broke up and the group went their seperate ways, still shouting and swearing at each other as they walked down the street. The police didn't show. Funny. They come in, investigating the case of the missing coat last week, and they didn't show when people were actually in danger.

It all calmed down, and most of the customers were laughing about it. Co-worker and me went back to take the food out.

It belonged to the guys that were fighting.

Ten meals, mostly burgers, were just sat there under the heat lamp. Mmmmm. Everyone that was working got a meal each! The timing couldn't have been better because I was absolutely starving.

A friend of mine was in the pub at the time and seemed to be the only witness to what happened. He said that it was all completely random. One guy accidentally walked into the other, and the next thing he knew, they were all punching each other.

We never saw the guys for the rest of the night, but something tells me they are the type that will have the balls to come back in and complain that they didn't get their food.

[Sandman]

Looks like a letter to the media is in order, since they consider a coat to be higher on the importance list than a human life.

[crazylegs]

Looks like a letter to the media is in order, since they consider a coat to be higher on the importance list than a human life.

I would suggest first contact the local police, their complaints system will be robust.

However it does depend on what your coworker said on the phone, if it went something like this...

Yes, police? [1] We've got people fighting, oh, they're outside now. No, I can't see any weapons, no there's no damage to the pub; oh it looks like they're going now[2]...

[1] Grade 1 response (i.e. blue lights/sirens) because the fight is in progress
[2] Grade 2 response, the fight has broken up, but there is no damage. What will normally happen if there is police operated CCTV in the area they will check to see if there are any injured persons, if not they won't (in all probability) send a resource, at which point it will get downgraded to a grade 4 response (No further police action).

Or, it may be that there were no resources to send, this happend more frequently than I care to admit. If there is a Road Traffic Collision on a major road until such time as the local authority puts into place road closures there will need to be a resource at every applicable junction to close the road (for example); perhaps there was a High Risk missing person and a huge amount of resources were scouring another area.

Quite frankly there are a thousand and one reasons why the police didn't attend, but if you want to find out phone them, they will tell you why they didn't attend.

[Sandman]

The only thing that as me.. is if that is the case that there were no resources to send, why didn't they send the state/county cops?

[Fenrus]

The only thing that as me.. is if that is the case that there were no resources to send, why didn't they send the state/county cops?

Jurisdictional boundary. State and county patrols have certain areas, city patrols have other areas. In most police departments, crossover is frowned upon at best. It can get to the point where some departments outright refuse to help another department.

So it could be that the pub is in an area with a city/county police department, and there is no crossover allowed.

[friendofjimmyk]

We never saw the guys for the rest of the night, but something tells me they are the type that will have the balls to come back in and complain that they didn't get their food.

No. Actually, I believe that if any of them knew or merely thought you called the cops...they would probably stay away for awhile.

Reminds me of a story when I was working in a sports bar that had 25 cent wing nights.

I had forgotten to tell a table that they needed to order only what they thought they would eat because we did not allow "to-go" boxes on wing nights. One table was left with at least 15 wings left. They were upset with me because I failed to tell them and they asked for a manager. Fair enough, I messed up. However, the manager wasn't going to cave. He had a spine. He told them, "sorry, I can't let you take those"

One of the guys was sooooo pissed off that he threw the wings at my manager. They stormed out. They left behing a key ring full, I mean absolutely FULL of various keys. We put them in the office that night. I left the restaurant 7 months later...the keys were stll there.

[crazylegs]

The only thing that as me.. is if that is the case that there were no resources to send, why didn't they send the state/county cops?

In the UK (where the OP and I are based) there is only one level of policing, and that is County level, so if they run out, that's it.

[gaspode]

The only thing that as me.. is if that is the case that there were no resources to send, why didn't they send the state/county cops?

unfortunatly we dont have state police in England

It reminds me of when I had my pub and I had an idiot trying to fight me because i wouldn't serve him,mainly because he was drunk and on steroids which made him pretty agressive.I threw him out but he kept comming back in trying to break things(including me) threw him out locked the doors with the customers inside and phoned the police.ONE hour later the police phone me back and asked me if I still needed them.My reply was "no we are all dead now" mind you he had fell asleep on the pavement.

on a side note the same person is on my friends list on facebook now

[Fenrus]

I threw him out but he kept comming back in trying to break things(including me) threw him out locked the doors with the customers inside and phoned the police.ONE hour later the police phone me back and asked me if I still needed them.My reply was "no we are all dead now" mind you he had fell asleep on the pavement.

This, again, brings up the "How did you tell them" factor.

Was it A) I've got a drunk in my bar being beligerant, and trying to assault staff. (Priority 1)

or B) I've got a drunk in the bar, we've since thrown him out locked doors. He's coming back, but he's outside right now. He is agressive, but doesn't have any weapons. (priority 4)

Also brings up the "emergency" part, how many other calls they were holding in their queue...

The "No, we are all dead now" reaction was completely uncalled for. In many dispatch centers, when calls hold for a long time, we are required to call complainants back, advise them of the delay, and let them know that "Yes, we have the call. Yes, we're getting to it as quickly as we can. No, we don't have an estimated time. We just haven't forgotten about you."

[Lace Neil Singer]

That's strange; the police would always come straight to my local back in the bad old days of it being a designated "let's fight everyone" place (but still a great hang out). XD Once I and a couple of mates were hanging around accross the road sharing a few takeouts and a police car stopped to make sure that we hadn't just left the pub (it was 4am, and this was several years ago, before 24/hr drinking; at least, officially. Many village pubs operated a lock in system). One of my old friends from primary school was driving the car. We assured him we'd been sitting here a while, and altho I'm sure he didn't believe us for a minute (not enough bottles to have been sitting there since 11:30 for one thing), since we were old mates, he just got back in and drove off. XD We invited him to join us, but he couldn't drink on duty.