PHUKET: The ''owner'' of a Phuket beach restaurant who flourished a gun at customers has been charged by police with a weapons offence.
Police searched Sommas Mahar-Aud, 38, at his Audy Restaurant at Surin beach last night and found him in possession of a handgun and 13 bullets.
The handgun is legally registered but Khun Sommas will be charged with carrying the weapon in a public place.
Today he told Phuketwan that the handgun he waved at a tourist couple in an incident on Monday was not real, but a plastic replica.
In a long account in Thai and English of an alarming encounter at the Surin beach restaurant, Thai-born Bee Bradley Donnelly wrote on Facebook that Khun Sommas waved a handgun and struck her Canadian husband Rob across the face.
The couple, who live in Shanghai, had spent their second whole day in a row at the restaurant with their 20-month-old son, Rob's mother and father and another relative.
Problems began when the couple were presented with a bill for almost 4000 baht for a day of eating and drinking. Mrs Bradley Donnelly said she could not read the details of the account.
''When I asked for the details, the owner reacted badly,'' she said. ''He ended up striking my husband across the face and waving the gun at us.''
Mrs Bradley Donnelly said the situation was so scary she ended up fleeing from the Surin beachfront with her toddler, but without her shoes.
The family left for Chiang Mai yesterday after a week on Phuket and said their encounter with ''the beach mafia'' meant they would not be returning to the holiday island.
''Bye Bye Phuket, bye bye Surin beach,'' Mrs Bradley Donnelly wrote on Facebook.
''Last day in my life to come here. Got in to a fight with the owner of the restaurant in Surin beach (near Diamond Club) after spend two days drinking and eating there. He almost kill us with the GUN!!! Even we have 20 months baby. Thailand has changed.''
Khun Sommas did not dispute the basics of Mrs Bradley Donnelly's account but said the restaurant was busy at the time she asked for details of the bill, so he left her a calculator.
He said he only struck her husband after her husband had said ''F---- you'' to him. The gun, he said, had been produced when a farang man intervened in the dispute.
''I recognised the man who intervened as a Swede who put another Thai man from the beach in hospital just a few days earlier,'' Khun Sommas said.
''That's the only reason I produced the gun. I pointed it at the Swedish man, not the couple.''
Officers at Cherng Talay Police Station were meeting to consider further action, the Superintendent, Colonel Chanuchan Cholsuwat, said today.
Police searched Sommas Mahar-Aud, 38, at his Audy Restaurant at Surin beach last night and found him in possession of a handgun and 13 bullets.
The handgun is legally registered but Khun Sommas will be charged with carrying the weapon in a public place.
Today he told Phuketwan that the handgun he waved at a tourist couple in an incident on Monday was not real, but a plastic replica.
In a long account in Thai and English of an alarming encounter at the Surin beach restaurant, Thai-born Bee Bradley Donnelly wrote on Facebook that Khun Sommas waved a handgun and struck her Canadian husband Rob across the face.
The couple, who live in Shanghai, had spent their second whole day in a row at the restaurant with their 20-month-old son, Rob's mother and father and another relative.
Problems began when the couple were presented with a bill for almost 4000 baht for a day of eating and drinking. Mrs Bradley Donnelly said she could not read the details of the account.
''When I asked for the details, the owner reacted badly,'' she said. ''He ended up striking my husband across the face and waving the gun at us.''
Mrs Bradley Donnelly said the situation was so scary she ended up fleeing from the Surin beachfront with her toddler, but without her shoes.
The family left for Chiang Mai yesterday after a week on Phuket and said their encounter with ''the beach mafia'' meant they would not be returning to the holiday island.
''Bye Bye Phuket, bye bye Surin beach,'' Mrs Bradley Donnelly wrote on Facebook.
''Last day in my life to come here. Got in to a fight with the owner of the restaurant in Surin beach (near Diamond Club) after spend two days drinking and eating there. He almost kill us with the GUN!!! Even we have 20 months baby. Thailand has changed.''
Khun Sommas did not dispute the basics of Mrs Bradley Donnelly's account but said the restaurant was busy at the time she asked for details of the bill, so he left her a calculator.
He said he only struck her husband after her husband had said ''F---- you'' to him. The gun, he said, had been produced when a farang man intervened in the dispute.
''I recognised the man who intervened as a Swede who put another Thai man from the beach in hospital just a few days earlier,'' Khun Sommas said.
''That's the only reason I produced the gun. I pointed it at the Swedish man, not the couple.''
Officers at Cherng Talay Police Station were meeting to consider further action, the Superintendent, Colonel Chanuchan Cholsuwat, said today.
id hate to be a food critic with a column in the phuket wan and be checking out his diner doubt he would except any critisism very well
Posted by slickmelb on April 3, 2013 13:56