#Bachelorette partygoer allegedly coughed on restaurant worker amid dispute

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A Nashville restaurant owner said he is pressing charges after a bachelorette party defied health orders and a guest coughed on an employee.
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A woman celebrating a bachelorette party in Tennessee intentionally coughed on a restaurant employee during a dispute over tables being combined, according to the restaurant’s owner.

Mikey Corona, co-owner of The Mockingbird in Nashville, said he wants criminal charges filed after a bachelorette party of 10 women refused to comply with the city’s health orders barring more than six guests per table, WKRN reports.

The group “stormed” out of the restaurant late Saturday once their request was denied, but Corona said one woman in the party decided to take it to another level by purposefully coughing on his assistant manager, he told the station.

“It was intentional, it was malice, it was not done in any sort of accidental way,” Corona said, adding that the woman coughed three times while holding her hand in the employee’s direction. “We knew exactly what that meant.”

Several in the group also refused to wear masks, Corona said.

“It’s not OK to do it anywhere,” he said of the woman’s alleged actions. “That’s the equivalent of like spitting on somebody, or slapping somebody, let alone during a pandemic.”

The unidentified assistant manager will be tested for COVID-19 and has since been sent home to quarantine, leaving him down another employee during an already tough time for his business, Corona said.

“So it’s just a struggle all around and it’s not necessary,” he told the station. “You know, we’re all about fun in this town, but when you come in with your bedazzled cowboy boots and you stomp on us like we’re a mat, that’s not OK. That’s where you have to draw the line because we’re also human and you should respect that first and foremost.”

Police in Nashville are investigating the case as a simple assault, WKRN reports.

Two women in the bachelorette party, meanwhile, told a news outlet in Mobile, Alabama, that the accusation was untrue and that they are consulting an attorney, WKRN reports.