One Tauranga hospitality worker reportedly got a black eye after a customer threw a large ceramic mug at her face.

This is just among some of the assaults hospitality staff are battling, according to Whipped Baker Café owner, Frances Cooper.

Frances says a lady came into the café at the Historic Village and was served her coffee by staff.

“There's obviously been a communication breakdown or something. [The customer] thought that she had been ripped off a dollar for her coffee.”

Frances says her café manager was calmly trying to handle the situation.

“The lady was just not having it and she said: ‘Nope, we're going to deal with this right now,’ and she apparently turned around, and threw the hot Americano in [our manager’s] face, followed by the cup.

“It wasn’t even a takeaway cup. It was a ceramic cup.”

Frances says the lady then grabbed her child and ran out of the café. Then Frances’s husband, Aaron Cooper quickly arrived and tried to find the lady, but had no luck.

“We haven't been able to find her. We’ve got her on camera, so we'll know what she looks like if she comes back into the village.”

“We just want kindness”

After the incident, Frances says the manager who had been struck in the face was “inconsolable”.

“She was so upset.”  

She says other customers were about when this happened, and her team was “gobsmacked”.

“I just don't know what's going on with people these days. We just want kindness. We just want respect. We're doing a job that we love to do. I'm incredibly proud of my staff and the way that they carry themselves. They work bloody hard.”

Yet, this is not the only incident of her staff experiencing abuse, says Frances.

Frances says in their Maungatapu bakery, a sizable, male customer came in and “absolutely abused my 16-year-old daughter behind the counter and threw donuts at her”.

This was apparently due to the donut prices. “When she got abused, she ended up coming out the back just absolutely beside herself and like dry retching.”

Covid and costs

Frances says since Covid-19, people seem to be much more intolerant and feel they have the right to do whatever they want. “They think they can go in, abuse staff and be impatient.”

She says customers also get frustrated over the prices of café food and drinks.

“In hospitality we have to put our prices up because every year the wages go up, and every year it seems like products go up.

“We've got people coming in and they're really pissed off because we're putting our prices up, but at the end of the day, if we don't put our prices up, we can't make money.”

Frances at her Maungatapu bakery.

SunLive reached out to Hospitality New Zealand – a membership organisation that advocates for people in the industry – to see how many reports of verbal of physical abuse they have had from our region this year.

Hospitality New Zealand regional manager Luke van Veen says the organisation hasn’t received any reports of physical or verbal abuse from Bay of Plenty hospitality staff recently.

“If any of our members do experience this kind of behaviour though, we’d encourage them to let us know so we can advocate for measures to ensure the safety and well-being of workers in the industry,” says Luke.

“If staff are abused, they can call on the support of their management, and if needed, the Police to address the situation." 

No charges

The staff member who was assaulted with the coffee cup does not want to go the police, Frances says. Despite the incident and receiving a black eye, the manager has continued working as normal.

Frances says instances such as these make staff “more on edge”.

“It makes my husband want to put up a plastic screen in front of the counter to protect the girls, but then what does that look like?

“We don't want people to feel uncomfortable when they come through the door, but there's a small minority of people that think it's their right to lay their hands on people.”