“I asked them to warn the kids” ... Female customer strikes woman who owns a chicken restaurant on the back of the neck

[Financial News] A woman customer at a chicken restaurant in Gwangju reportedly assaulted the owner several times and even spat on her after the owner asked the children's guardians to warn them. The owner said she was distressed because she had been assaulted in front of her daughter.
On JTBC’s “Case Leader,” which aired on the 14th, A, who has run a chicken restaurant in Gwangju for 10 years, recounted the incident, saying a customer had assaulted her.
The incident occurred at around 7 p.m. on the 11th. According to A, one adult man and two women came to the restaurant with three young boys and ordered chicken and beer. The two women were believed to be sisters-in-law, and reportedly appeared to have already been drinking.
The adults who came into the restaurant appeared to be arguing among themselves from the outset. Meanwhile, the children reportedly ran around the restaurant.
The owner said there were no other customers at the time, so she did not make an issue of the children running around inside. But when one child ran outside, where there was heavy traffic, and tried to touch the water dispenser, she asked the guardians to keep an eye on the children out of concern for their safety.
A said, “There were no other customers, so I wasn’t going to say anything about the children lying on the sofa or running around. But there are a lot of cars passing in front of the restaurant, and one child ran outside and tried to touch the water dispenser, so I said, ‘Sweetie, go stand by your mom. You’ll burn your hand if you touch that,’ and asked the guardians, ‘Could you please warn the children to be careful?’”
One of the women then reportedly began swearing at the owner. The woman protested, “Who are you to tell me what to do with my child?”
A said, “I’ll call the police,” but the woman reportedly retorted, “Even if you call them, I can get away with it by pleading diminished mental capacity.”
The woman then talked about her personal circumstances as well. According to A, she went on to say things like, “I’m exhausted from raising my child all by myself” and “I recently had thyroid surgery.”
The situation reportedly turned violent when the owner tried to stop a child from touching her pet turtle.
When one child repeatedly tapped the tank containing the turtle with his hand, A stopped him. The turtle was a pet A had kept for about 16 years.
When A told the child, “No,” the woman customer reportedly protested, asking, “How much does that turtle even cost?”
A said she did not answer the woman’s question and was then assaulted. The woman used her body weight to strike A on the back of the neck and even spat on her; the assault was repeated several times, A said.
The impact was reportedly enough to break the hairpin A was wearing.
Professor Park Sang-hee, who watched footage of the incident on the program, noted that the children appeared unfazed even during the assault.
Professor Park said, “Even though their mother is hitting someone, the children act unconcerned. I heard that even while their mother was being questioned by the police, they brought her a cellphone and asked her to do something for them. Things like that seem to be an everyday occurrence for the children.”
The woman reportedly claimed, even as she was being taken away by the police, that the owner had raised the issue to get settlement money. The woman said, “The chicken restaurant owner’s business is doing badly and she has no customers, so she’s trying to get settlement money.”
The owner was even more distressed by the fact that her daughter had witnessed the assault. A described how she felt at the time, saying, “I never thought I’d be beaten by a customer like this in front of my own child. It’s absolutely devastating.”
[email protected] Han Seung-gon Reporter