A bartender who allegedly assaulted a confectionary vendor was ordered to pay her $15,000 compensation and was placed on a bond to keep the peace for nine months when he appeared before Magistrate Melissa Robertson-Ogle last week at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.

Stephen Ramdass, 28, of 248 Section B, Block X, Great Diamond, pleaded not guilty to unlawfully and maliciously assaulting Paula Rawlins.

Rawlins stated that on August 28 around 10:00 hrs  on America Street she entered a bar where Ramdass works and enquired from a few persons if they were interested in purchasing some of her confectionary which she sells at that location.  As she was selling a customer who had paid her $1,000 for a Pringles and some other items, Ramdass approached and asked her why her mints looked the way they did. She told him that it was that way because she had tied them together with a rubber band so that they would not be scattered. He then informed her that she had to leave the bar. When she declared that she was a regular seller there and she was not leaving, Ramdass allegedly started using indecent language and chucked her out of the building. She said that she left the premises and went into a Chinese restaurant where she left her goods before going to the Brickdam Police Station to report the matter.

However, Ramdass said that he never chucked Rawlins but he had instructed her to leave the bar because of the big sign in the building stating “No limers, no vendors” and  he was just acting according to instructions from his boss.

He alleged that Rawlins took money from one of the waitresses, and never gave her the things that she had purchased. He also claimed that it was Rawlins who assaulted him by cursing him when he ordered her to leave the building.

Rawlins, however, stated that she was not desirous of offering any evidence against Ramdass and so the magistrate ordered that he pay  compensation and placed him on a bond to keep the peace for nine months.