Red Onion Manager Arrested After Kicking Patron During Brawl

The general manager of the Red Onion in Redondo Beach was arrested and booked this week for suspected battery after kicking a patron in the upper body during a brawl that broke out in the restaurant shortly before closing time and spilled into the parking lot.

Gary La Grou, 26, of Los Angeles, a four-year employee of the Red Onion chain, said in an interview Wednesday that he was acting in self-defense when he kicked Alejandro Aguirre, 22, of Carson during the melee that began just before midnight Sunday.

“I came running out the door, and he was running toward me and . . . I thought I was being attacked,” said La Grou, who was released on $250 bond pending a June 5 arraignment.

But Aguirre said in an interview that La Grou assaulted him without provocation as he was being subdued by bouncers in the parking lot. He asked police to file charges against La Grou.

Redondo Beach police said the fight began inside the bar, as Aguirre was leaving with a woman. As the pair wended their way to the door, Aguirre said, another patron at the bar asked the woman to dance. When she declined, Aguirre said, the man persisted until Aguirre demanded that he leave her alone. A fistfight erupted, escalating when Aguirre’s brother, Eddie Aguirre, 21, leaped into the fray along with a friend of the other patron.

As bouncers pushed the group outside, Eddie Aguirre said, La Grou appeared on the scene.

“This guy with a name tag and dress clothes all of a sudden pushed the bouncers aside,” Eddie Aguirre said. “He said, ‘You guys get the hell out of here,’ and then he just kicked my brother in the stomach. After that, it was like 15 guys, including the manager, on my brother and me.”

Police arrived within minutes and took La Grou into custody, according to police reports. Eddie Aguirre was treated at South Bay Hospital for two black eyes and a broken nose. Alejandro Aguirre suffered only a black eye.

La Grou, who came to work at the Redondo Beach Red Onion only a month ago, said company policy mandates that “we’re not supposed to hit anybody, ever. We’re not authorized to strike customers, but I felt that, to protect myself, that’s what I had to do.”

He said that in the four years he has been with the company, working his way up from tending bar in Lakewood to managing first the Marina del Rey restaurant and now the local one, he has never been disciplined by the firm.

However, he said, the local restaurant is notorious throughout the chain for the “younger, rougher beach-type crowd” it attracts and for the number of fights that seem to break out there. In January, 1989, a 22-year-old Venice man died of massive head injuries he suffered during a fight in the parking lot.

La Grou added that the Sunday night fight is the second to have occurred since he arrived at the restaurant last month. His second day on the job, he said, he broke up a three-way fight in the parking lot. The effort, he added, earned him a gash on the head and four stitches.

Redondo police said the restaurant has no more fights, on average, than any other bar catering to young singles in the area.

Neither La Grou nor the Aguirres attributed the fight to ethnic or racial discrimination, for which the chain has been blamed in the past.

In 1986, a series of discrimination suits were filed against the company after employees in Orange County disclosed that they had been instructed as a matter of policy to use dress codes and questions about the validity of ID’s as a pretext for keeping minorities out of the Red Onion.

The claims spurred a state investigation that traced the policy of discrimination to company President Ron Newman. The chain agreed to a series of settlements requiring temporary suspensions of liquor licenses for several restaurants and $390,000 in payments to 26 people who had sued, claiming that they were denied admission to the Red Onion because of race.