A celebrity chef has claimed vegan activist Tash Peterson is ‘obsessed’ with him and threatened legal action after slapping him with multiple charges for twice attacking him at his Perth restaurant.
Police charged Peterson with being in the vicinity of a licensed premises, and disorderly conduct in a public place after a second confrontation with the chef outside his Perth restaurant, Fire, last weekend.
A bitter feud erupted between the controversial activist and Onlifans star and Mr Mountain when he banned all vegetarians from his venue.
Mr Mountain said he had received two restraining orders from a magistrate granting that Peterson could no longer mention the chef’s name, his company or anyone associated with him online and also planned to remove him from social media.
‘You’ll see his Instagram clear because it’s about me,’ Mr Mountain told A Current Affair.
‘He’s Got Some Weird Obsessions’
Police charged Peterson with trespassing, being in the vicinity of licensed premises and disorderly conduct in a public place.
Peterson’s actions have seen him banned from all licensed venues in Western Australia for the next year, but Mr Mountain does not believe the ban is ‘harsh’ enough.
‘Twelve months is not enough. We’re actually going for a lifetime ban on all licensed premises across WA – so no restaurants, no bars, nothing,’ he said.
‘If he’s going to be so disruptive, it’s not right. It’s not fair to small operators, it’s not fair to licensed premises at all. We should not allow this to continue.
‘He tried to hurt my business so much and it really hurt.’
Fire’s ban on vegetarians, citing ‘mental health reasons’, was in response to a customer complaint about the restaurant’s failure to accommodate their dietary needs.
A group of workers, including Ms. Peterson, began protesting outside the restaurant shortly after the announcement.
However, Ms Peterson denied protesting the ban.
‘I am there for non-human animals who are victims of rape, slavery, torture, abuse and murder. It has nothing to do with banning vegetarians,’ he said.
Perth chef John Mountain claims vegan activist Tash Peterson is ‘obsessed’ with him
During the second protest on July 8, chaos broke out inside and outside the restaurant.
As patrons dined in, staff played audio of pig squeals through a megaphone, flooding the venue.
In a video posted on Instagram, Ms Peterson entered the restaurant shouting that ‘the sounds you can hear now are pigs screaming for their lives in carbon dioxide gas chambers, they are burning from the inside’.
‘You are responsible for killing them if you are not a vegetarian and have their blood on your hands,’ she said.
Mrs. Peterson and Mr. Mountain face off during the confrontation.
After the run, the restaurant shared Thursday night that Ms. Peterson and her boyfriend were now legally barred from entering the premises.
The notice informed the couple that they would be trespassing and that the business would ‘take all appropriate steps to remove and exclude you’.
According to the restaurant’s solicitor, a copy of the offense notice was provided to Joondalup police station.
‘Hahahahahahaha and so it begins,’ the restaurant posted on Facebook with a photo of the letter.
Mr Mountain and Peterson have been embroiled in an ongoing dispute after his revisionist ban on vegetarianism.
Vegan activist Tash Peterson is notorious for her disruptive protest style
A few hours later, Ms Peterson revealed on Instagram that she would continue the protest and filmed a clip of herself throwing protest notice papers into a fire pit.
“I will continue to go to restaurants and places with liquor licenses if they make a profit and abuse, torture and kill animals,” he said.
‘No one can stop me from bringing to light the greatest genocide in human history where trillions of people are brutally murdered for human pleasure.’
The restaurant was flooded with one-star reviews on its Google page.
The response initially made Mr Mountain ‘terrified’ for his business, but the attention has led to a ‘flood’ of bookings.
‘Unfortunately for vegetarians, this is the best marketing that has ever happened to me, thank you very much I love vegetarians,’ he told Perth Now.
But while the war didn’t stop patrons from attending, it did take a toll on Mr. Mountain’s personal life.
Earlier this week, while holding back tears, she revealed on Current Affairs that the feud has cost her her relationship.
‘I lost my partner because of this, I lost a relationship, I thought I was going to marry this woman and she couldn’t handle the amount of attention – thanks to vegans,’ he said.
‘He was the perfect partner.
‘But it was too much for him, he’s very private and he didn’t want any of it to get out.
‘If these protests hadn’t happened, this wouldn’t have happened, so I blame (the vegans) directly.’
Mountain said his battle against Peterson wasn’t over because he wanted to finish what he started.
He said, ‘After taking legal action against the police, I will also start civil action.’
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