Wild footage of a massive brawl in Las Vegas hit social media Thursday, showing several men and women throwing punches and chairs at each other in a Mexican restaurant.
In the video tweeted by @VegasIssues, at least seven people are seen attacking each other in a Tacos El Gordo restaurant. Two men tackle each other into table, knocking it over, as a third throws a chair at several more men. Two women in short dresses and high heels can also be observed in the fray.
“In other Vegas news, a fight broke out at Tacos El Gordo,” @VegasIssues tweeted along with the video.
The fight inside the restaurant comes on the heels of one of the most difficult years for the service industry. Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic decimated restaurants across the United States, with more than 100,000 eating and drinking establishments closing in 2020 as a result, according to Fortune.
“Every restaurant segment has been impacted by the pandemic, but the sales and employment losses have been felt disproportionately by full-service restaurants, which had much more challenging pivots to off-premises service,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the research and knowledge group for the National Restaurant Association.
“The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is helping thousands of restaurants keep their employees on staff and their doors open, but our industry is uniquely affected and has unique challenges that PPP isn’t always going to meet. Ultimately, recovery for restaurants will take industry-specific support through dedicated grants, tax relief, and other stimulus support at the federal, state, and local levels.”
Support was offered through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund as part of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, but according to an email to business owners reported by Food and Wine Magazine, the fund has already run dry.
By the end of June, the program issued its entire $28.6 billion in funding to 105,000 restaurants. The online portal that allowed restaurants to apply for the program closed on July 14, leaving hundreds of thousands of restaurants without relief.
“It seemed too good to be true, and it turned out that that was the case,” said Tom Pisha-Duffly, chef and co-owner of Oma’s Hideaway in Portland, Oregon. After being approved for funding as part of the program, Pisha-Duffly later learned he and his partners would not receive any grant money at all.
“You know not to depend on stuff until it’s in your account but when you get an official letter, an official approval in a grant program from the government you have reason to believe you can count on it,” said Lindsay Mescher, owner of Greenhouse Cafe in Lebanon, Ohio. Like Pisha-Duffly, Mescher got nervous when more than a week from her approval went by without any money being deposited in her account.
