Portogallo Peppers N'at owner Bob Portogallo joined Lynne Hayes-Freeland and Robert Mangino on Tuesday to clear up what happened at this restaurant on Thanksgiving Eve.
The Braddock restaurant owner, who is suing the town's mayor and the borough, said that he did not violate the governor's mandate on the night in question.
"I want to clarify what happened on Wednesday Thanksgiving Eve," Portogallo said on Tuesday.
"We were within our legal right. The mandate said no alcohol sales past 5 p.m…free alcohol was acceptable. I checked with the attorneys and that was fine. Then they changed the mandate again to say that no consumption of alcohol on the premises after 6 p.m.. We closed. We did not open. We did not violate any of the restrictions or mandates.
If you look on the health department's website, they were here at 6:30 checking for violations, and there was no violations," Bob continued.
"I wanted to clarify that. We did not violate any of the mandates. Period."
The lawsuit in question was filed on Monday against Mayor Chardaé Jones and the borough on counts of defamation and civil rights violations, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The lawsuit accuses the mayor of stating on Facebook that Portogallo is racist over the restaurant's own Facebook page postings and alleges that the mayor sent police to investigate his restaurant over alleged COVID-19 violations.
Bob could not comment further on specifics of the lawsuit at this time, outside of stating that the defamation part of the lawsuit is more than just what occurred on Thanksgiving Eve.
