The owner of the restaurant repeatedly targeted by a notorious group of animal rights activists has confirmed he will press charges against them — and welcomed charges being brought against him.
John Mountain’s Connolly restaurant Fyre was again targeted by the group on Saturday night, with infamous activist Tash Peterson leading the charge.
Tempers flared immediately as Peterson and her band of not-so-merry vegan activists besieged the eatery.
She and five others stood outside the packed restaurant and played footage of animals being slaughtered on a TV screen. It was accompanied by loud pig screeching noises through a megaphone.
Mountain charged through the doors and confronted the group multiple times, with several scuffles breaking out over the course of an hour before police arrived.
Staff members coaxed the restaurant owner back into the venue and the blinds on the windows were drawn.
But as the protest continued outside, there was a second violent tussle between the chef and Peterson.
A third brawl then ensued, with several patrons joining Mountain in attacking the protesters.
Mountain admitted on Sunday to responding to the protest outside his restaurant by physically and verbally threatening Peterson’s partner Jack Higgs, who was filming the demonstration.
“Fantastic … I know exactly what I’ve done against her. It was horrific,” the Fyre owner said.
“He’s (Higgs) a little b…h. I didn’t touch him … I came at the little s..t. I wanted to stop them getting footage … he’s spreading lies about abattoirs.”
Mountain was unapologetic about the aggressive way in which he handled the situation.
“I’ll f…..g threaten him every day of the week,” he said. “I need to protect my customers. They want the aggression … whether I’ve handled it in the best way, whatever.”
When police officers turned up diffuse the situation, she turned the tables and filed an assault report against Mountain.
Ms Peterson told The West Australian on Sunday she made a statement to Joondalup Police station regarding “being manhandled” during Saturday’s incident, and also intended revisit her previous assault claims weeks on by making another statement.
It is the second time Peterson had protested at Fyre. On June 30, she and her group stormed inside the restaurant before being physically removed by Mountain and staff.
Peterson claimed she had been left with cuts and bruises from that confrontation.
Peterson and Higgs have since released a video of the latest stoush on Saturday night.
“We decided to return to this restaurant tonight, we’ve just come back and it was probably just as chaotic,” Peterson said in the video.
“But this time we decided we wanted to stand there, on the outside, with the aim to essentially be completely silent and blast the screams of pigs.”
The feud between Mountain and Peterson started in June when the restaurant owner banned vegans from his eatery after a negative review was left by a plant-based eater.
The ban announced on the restaurant’s Facebook page, revealed by The West Australian, said that vegans were no longer welcome “due to mental health reasons”.
It caught the attention of Perth’s most controversial vegan activist.