Niagara Falls Police responded to the 2600 block of Pine Avenue, Shorty’s Restaurant and Bar, around 6:30/7pm on March 17th for a fight. While en route, dispatch advised that a large group of individuals were outside of the restaurant fighting in the roadway.
Upon arrival, officers observed approximately 50 individuals standing in the roadway arguing with each other. Officers gave all individuals multiple commands to disperse out of the roadway with no success.
At this point, officers deployed PepperBall capsules onto the roadway, saturating the general area where the individuals were refusing to disperse. Officers continued ordering participants to disperse the area at which time they started pepper spraying people.
During the incident, two individuals were taken into custody.
Officers spoke with the owners of Shorty’s who explained that they have a Sunday brunch event that takes place every Sunday. This event ends approximately at 6pm each week at which point all patrons are asked to leave the premises.
On today’s date, the individuals who were asked to leave all began to congregate in the parking lot. The one owner stated that she has three security guards present every Sunday to assist with dispersing parties, which was unsuccessful today. Once the fight broke out, she locked the entrance doors so no one could re-enter.
Both arrested parties were transported to police headquarters for booking and processing. No further information is available at this time.
Police Deploy PepperBalls and Pepper Spray to Break Up 50-person Brawl