Flint Quotes: Brawling From Tavern to Tavern

“The bearded lumberman with their coonskin caps, red sashes, and hobnailed boots brawled from tavern to tavern,” explains Carl Crow in a sometimes flamboyantly written history of Flint commissioned by General Motors in 1945. “Lumbering was rough business and lumberman were rough men. They worked hard, played hard, and usually drank quantities of hard liquor. There was a story throughout the logging camps that some of the lumberjacks would cheerfully eat pine chips or sawdust if generously moistened with whiskey.”

We are not alone in our love of Chuck E. Cheese and wrasslin'

All you people — including myself — who thought "This could only happen in Flint" when the news broke of an all-out, booze-fueled brawl at Chuck E. Cheese on Miller Road a few weeks ago need to apologize to the Vehicle City. Apparently, Flint isn't the only place where alleged adults take their children out for a night of fun, buy them some pizza and spring for a few game tokens...and then start swinging.

NATICK, Mass. - A child's birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant was cut short after a fight broke out between two mothers. Natick police said the mom of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman's son was "hogging" an arcade game.

Sgt. Paul Thompson said Catherine Aliaga, 38, and Tarsha Williams, 33, both of Boston, would be summoned into court to answer charges of simple assault and battery stemming from the scuffle.

Thompson told the MetroWest Daily News that police received a number of 911 calls about the fight Saturday night.

He said what started as a birthday celebration turned into a "birthday melee."

Wait a minute. Just two women were fighting and the Natick PD is calling it a melee? That's known as a quiet night in Flint. Natick may have technically tied us for the Chuck E. Cheese Brawl Capital of the U.S., but the Massachusetts town has a long way to go before it catches up to Flint in the major crimes competition.

	Flint, MI	Natick, MA	National
Murder:	45.7	0	7
Forcible Rape:	120.92	12.45	32.2
Robbery:	530.2	12.4	205.8
Aggravated Assault:	1899.3	127.6	336.5
Burglary:	2585.9	292.5	813.2
Larceny Theft:	2991.8	1717.8	2601.7
Vehicle Theft:	1286.2	124.5	501.5

Latest 2006 Crimes per 100,000 People:

Thanks to Aaron for passing this tidbit along!

Family Fun!

It happens to the best of us. We go to Chuck E Cheese on Miller Road in Flint, have a few beers, eat some pizza, have a few more beers, play some video games, have a few more beers...and start brawling. The Flint Journal has the details:

The first call came in at 8:53 p.m. concerning a fight among three teenage girls at the pizza parlor. A Genesee County Sheriff's paramedic and state troopers quickly got the fight under control, and canceled other officers headed that way to back them up.

But a few minutes later, the officers sent out a second call as the fight erupted again, and quickly turned into "a knock-down, drag-out between 75 and 80 people," said Flint Township police Sgt. Tim Jones.

"The biggest thing we did was just try to control the crowd. Once pepper has been sprayed, it's floating in the air so we called in for medical help in clearing it. If people aren't used to pepper spray, they get pretty scared and angry," said Jones.

And the fun was really just beginning.

On Sunday, it looked like it was going to happen again. A TV news crew was in the parking lot filming a segment on the previous night's brawl when a family fight broke out among several women and escalated to a group of about 10 in the same family, said Jones.