A Celebrity chef has claimed vegan activist Tash Peterson is ‘obsessed’ with him and has threatened legal action after she was slapped with a number of charges for storming his Perth restaurant twice.
Police have charged Peterson with trespassing, remaining in the vicinity of a licenced premises, and disorderly behaviour in a public place after clashing with the chef for the second time outside his Perth restaurant, Fyre, last weekend.
A bitter feud broke out between the controversial activist and OnlyFans star and Mr Mountain after he banned all vegans from his venue.
Mr Mountain said he has obtained two restraining orders from a magistrate where it was granted that Peterson can no longer mention the chef’s name, his company or anybody associated with him online, and also plans to have her removed from social media.
‘You will see a clean-up of her Instagram because it’s all about me,’Mr Mountain told A Current Affair.
‘She’s got some weird obsession’
Police have charged Peterson with trespassing, remaining in the vicinity of a licenced premises, and disorderly behaviour in a public place
Peterson’s actions have seen her barred from all licenced venues in Western Australia for the next year, but Mr Mountain doesn’t think the ban is ‘harsh’ enough.
‘Twelve months is not enough. We were actually going for a lifetime ban of all licenced premises throughout WA – so no restaurants, no bars, no nothing,’ he said.
‘If she’s going to cause this much disruption, it’s not fair. It’s not fair on small operators, it’s not fair on licensed premises at all. We shouldn’t allow this to carry on.
‘She tried to damage my business so much and it really hurt.’
Fyre’s ban on vegans, which cited ‘mental health reasons’, was in response to a customer complaint about the restaurant’s failure to accommodate their dietary needs.
A group of activists, including Ms Peterson, began protesting outside the restaurant shortly after the announcement.
However, Ms Peterson has denied the protests are due to the ban.
‘I’m there on behalf of the non-human animals who are subjected to rape, enslavement, torture, abuse and murder. It’s got nothing to do with him banning vegans,’ she said.
Perth Chef John Mountain has claimed vegan activist Tash Peterson is ‘obsessed’ with him
During the second demonstration on July 8, chaos erupted inside and outside the restaurant.
As patrons dined inside, activists swamped the venue, playing audio of pigs squealing through a megaphone.
In one video posted to Instagram, Ms Peterson enters the restaurant screaming that ‘the sounds you hear now are pigs screaming for their lives in carbon dioxide gas champers, they burn from the inside out’.
‘You are responsible for their murder if you are not vegan and their blood is on your hands,’ she said.
Ms Peterson and Mr Mountain faced off during the clash.
After the run-in, the restaurant on Thursday night shared that Ms Peterson and her boyfriend were now legally barred from entering the premises.
The notice informed the pair that they would be committing trespass and the business would ‘take all appropriate steps to remove and exclude you’.
According to the restaurant’s solicitor, a copy of the trespass notice has been given to the Joondalup Police Station.
‘Hahahahahaha and so it begins,’ the restaurant posted to Facebook with a picture of the letter.
Mr Mountain and Peterson have been caught up in an ongoing dispute after his retsuarant banned vegans
Vegan activist Tash Peterson is notorious for her disruptive protest style
A few hours later Ms Peterson revealed on Instagram that she would continue to protest and filmed a clip showing herself throwing the barring notice papers into a fire pit.
‘I will continue to go into restaurants and places with liquor licences if they are profiting and serving animal abuse, torture and murder,’ she said.
‘No one can stop me from bringing to light the largest holocaust in human history where trillions of non-human people are brutally murdered for human pleasure.’
The restaurant was also inundated with one-star reviews on its Google page.
The backlash initially made Mr Mountain ‘fearful’ for his business, but due to the attention bookings ‘flooded in’.
‘Sadly for the vegans, this has been the best marketing that’s ever happened to me, thank you so much I love the vegans,’ he told Perth Now.
But while the war hasn’t stopped patrons from attending, it has impacted Mr Mountain’s personal life.
Earlier this week, while choking back tears, he revealed on A Current Affair the dispute had cost him his relationship.
‘I lost my partner because of this, I lost a relationship, I thought I was going to marry this woman and she just couldn’t handle the amount of attention – thanks vegans,’ he said.
‘She was the perfect partner.
‘But it was too much for her, she’s very private and she didn’t want any of this to get out.
‘If these protests didn’t occur this wouldn’t have happened, so I directly blame (vegans).’
Mountain said his battle against Peterson was not over because he wanted to finish what he started.
‘Once we get over the legal action so far as the police are concerned, I’m going to start going for civil action as well,’ he said.
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