Jessi Milestone, host of the YouTube pop culture commentary channel Mindless Entertainment, has claimed that she was recently assaulted at a Santa Monica sports bar due to a mild taunt against the bar owner’s preferred NFL team.
On October 6th, Milestone, herself a “massive [Philadelphia] Eagles fan,” visited the Britannia Pub in Santa Monica, CA, a British-themed pub which has adopted Eagles fans and become a defacto ‘Eagles bar,’ to watch the Philadelphia Eagles play the New York Jets. After watching the Eagles obliterate the Jets, Milestone was invited by another group of Eagles fans to move locations and visit Big Dean’s Ocean Front Café, an establishment frequented by fans of the New York Giants.
After purchasing a beer and turning her attention to a screen showing the Green Bay Packers vs Dallas Cowboys game, a man wearing a Giants hat walked past an Eagles-gear clad Milestone, prompting Milestone to offer up an inoffensive piece of trash talk, telling the man “I’m sorry your team sucks.” (The Eagles and Giants are NFL divisional rivals, and the Eagles are currently one-game ahead of the Giants in the division standings). The man, identified by Milestone as the owner of Big Dean’s, took great offense to this comment, and asked Milestone to leave:
“This guy, turns out he’s the owner. If he wants to get his panties in a wad and tell me to leave, that’s fine. But he comes up and he’s like “You. You need to leave.” He just gets in my face and tells me to leave and I’m like ‘I’m not leaving’.”
After Milestone refused to leave, noting that she had just purchased a fresh beer, the man allegedly attempted to physically wrest the beverage from Milestone’s hand, before returning to literally throw a refund into Milestone’s face and threaten her with potential action from his bouncers:
“I’m like “I’m not leaving, I just bought my beer.” And he’s like “Well, I’ll give you the money back for the beer. Get out.” And I’m like “No!” So I’m holding the beer, right? He grabs my arm, he literally wrestles the beer out of my hand, spills it all over me in the process, and then walks away. And I’m just like, shellshocked, I’m like ‘What the f*** just happened? This guy just, like, attacked me, just grabbed me and just took this out of my hand that I bought and paid for. Comes out a couple minutes later with the cash and the coins in the amount of the beer and literally throws it at me. And I pick it up and he’s like “You have to go.” And I’m like “I’m not leaving, what the hell.” And he’s like “I’m going to get my bouncers to come throw you out.” And I’m like “Great, I’m going to go file a police report.”
Milestone’s account is supported by the Santa Monica Police Department Call for Service Report from October 6th. According to the report, officers responded to and took a report of a “Battery Just Occurred” incident which took place at 3:30 PM PST, which falls in the time frame between the end of the Eagles/Jets game and the Packers/Dallas game, on the 1600 block of Ocean Front Walk, where Big Dean’s is located. Milestone, however, noted that the Santa Monica PD will “forward the report to the District Attorney, and the District Attorney decides whether to move forward with it or not” and that she is “not optimistic” about the potential outcome.
Miletone claims that this is the second time within a year that she has been assaulted by “grown-ass f****** men,” stating that “Last year, when I went to the [Los Angeles] Rams game, and we’re all, y’know, trading barbs with a Rams fan and I playfully flick the brim of his hat and he full-hand slaps me across the face.” These incidents, coupled with her belief that there likely will be no action taken against the owner of Big Dean’s, led Milestone to tearfully express her frustrations, asking her viewers “what can I actually do?”
“What’s going to happen? Nothing’s going to happen to this guy. This guy is gonna carry on his merit. I did what I could, you know? I’m making this video, I filed a police report, I left a shitty review, you know, on Yelp, but what can I actually do? I hate it because I feel so powerless, like I didn’t do anything wrong, you know, and it’s just like…why do people act like this? Why the hell would anybody act like this is okay? Why would anybody think this is okay?”
[…]
“To think that it’s actually okay to grab me like that? To just put your hands on me? That’s not effing okay! You don’t do that to people!”
The Yelp review mentioned above was left by Milestone on the Monday following the incident and warned users that “If you’re looking to get physically assaulted by the owner, then Big Dean’s is the place for you:”
“If you’re looking to get physically assaulted by the owner, then Big Dean’s is the place for you. I was dragged there yesterday after the morning football games by my fellow Eagles fans, even though this is a Giant’s bar. It was crowded, and full of fans of multiple other teams. I had just gotten my beer when I guy walked by in a Giants hat and I said, “sorry your team sucks”. You know, just regular banter between fans of rival divisions. Well, turns out the guy was the owner. He got in my face and told me to leave. I said I just got my beer, I’m not going anywhere. He said, “give me your beer”. I said, “no – I paid for that”. He said he would give me my money back, then grabbed my wrist and wrestled the beer out of my hand, spilling it all over me in the process. He then left, and came back with some cash and coins, which he threw at me. I picked it up off the ground, then saw him telling all of his bartenders not to serve me. My friends talked to him, and he told them that if I didn’t leave in ten minutes, the bouncers were going to come throw me, and all the other Eagles fans out. So I left and reported the incident to the Santa Monica Police. Suffice to say, I will not be going back.”
Following Milestone’s video, supporters have attempted to review bomb Big Dean’s on Yelp, specifically citing this incident. While Big Dean’s has no social media presence (save for oft-used Twitter and Facebook accounts), a man purported to be the owner of Big Dean’s, Marty Mink, regularly responds to reviews on Yelp, but since the incident has not responded to Milestone or any other complaint.