A publican at a popular tavern in the Far North District is facing backlash after she was caught on camera calling a patron "a Māori slapper" in a vicious diatribe.
Footage of the verbal altercation on Sunday night shows a co-owner of the Taipa Tavern, Carol Delamore, hurling verbal abuse at the patron, who captured the incident on their phone.
But the patron, who spoke to Newshub on the condition of anonymity, suggested the tirade is not out of character for Delamore, who has faced accusations of racism before. They said the publican's frequent misspelling of te reo Māori on social media has previously stoked tension in the small Taipa-Mangonui community.
Video of the tirade - supplied to Newshub by the source - begins with the patron approaching Delamore, asking: "What did you call me?"
The publican quickly responds, "a Māori slapper", heavily mispronouncing "Māori".
"You are a slapper," she continues, as a man attempts to pull Delamore away.
The patron asks Delamore twice if she is "racist".
"I'm very racist," Delamore can be heard mumbling in response, as the man continues to usher her away from the camera towards a bench.
"No, she's not," he interjects.
Another local approaches the camera, saying: "No, no, no, seriously, she's not racist."
"Then why did she call me a 'Marri' slapper?" the patron persists.
The man appears to argue the publican was drunk, but the customer pans the camera back to Delamore, who points and yells, "slapper!" She then waves her hand in a dismissive gesture and tells the patron to "f*** off".
The man, who can be seen attempting to restrain Delamore's arms, reprimands her: "That's disgusting, don't talk like that."
Delamore then lurches forward and tries to hit the phone out of the patron's hand, before sitting back down and calling the patron a "f****** c***".
The footage, which was briefly uploaded to Facebook, attracted a storm of controversy on social media. However, the patron has since decided to remove the video.
Speaking to Newshub on Tuesday, the patron said they had shared the footage in the hope Delamore would "review her behaviour" and "make changes so patrons feel safe".
The patron claims Delamore has previously faced criticism from the community for her incorrect use of te reo Māori - which was also made evident in her mispronunciation of the word during the diatribe.
"The publican made racist, derogatory comments as the bar was closing, and we were leaving. She hit my phone out of my hand when she realised I was recording the incident," the patron told Newshub.
"The publican has previously raised debate in our small community for her incorrect use of te reo. We are a small community and this is our local tavern - we should feel safe to go out and not be abused by drunk pub owners.
"I hope she makes changes to create a safe environment in her licensed premises for all patrons, including Māori women."
'It made quite a few people angry'
The clip, which is only a brief 36 seconds, shows the verbal altercation unfolding in the Taipa Tavern. However, what happened in the lead-up to the tirade remains unclear.
The patron alleges that tensions had been simmering long before Sunday night's explosion - largely stemming from Delamore's frequent misspelling of Māori place names on Taipa Tavern's Facebook page.
"In December 2020, she put up a post with incorrect spelling of Māori [place names]. She wouldn't correct it. It made quite a few people angry," the patron told Newshub.
"Then in May, I asked who ran the Facebook page. She said it was her. I asked her why she didn't just correct it. She said she didn't want to talk about it. The next day after I had asked her, she put up another post purposely spelling names wrong again."
Newshub could not find this particular post from December. However, a number of other posts - still published on the tavern's Facebook page at the time of writing - appear to reference an incident that month in which Delamore had angered local residents by misspelling Māori words.
Multiple screenshots supplied to Newshub by the patron show the publican has been called out numerous times for their poor spelling - the local settlement of Whatuwhiwhi in particular.
In one screenshot, Whatuwhiwhi and the town of Kaitaia are misspelled as "Whituwhiwhi" and "Katihia" respectively.
A person responded to the post: "If you could please correct our place names - again... it's Whatuwhiwhi and it is Kaitaia."
In another screenshot of a separate post, an admin for the Taipa Tavern Facebook page said they "don't need to" rectify the incorrect spelling of a Māori word after being called out for the "disrespectful" behaviour in the comments.
However, on a few occasions, the publican did apologise for her errors.
In one comment, a woman picked up on the misspelling of Mangonui, to which the publican responded that she had "always been a bad speller".
"Trying hard but boy some of but only a few have given me grief manly customers from that [other] pub we know about [sic]," she replied. "Thanks corrected already my god I'm an idiot [sorry]."
In another comment, an admin for the Taipa Tavern page said "we have never been racists" and claimed they are of "Māori descent ourselves". It's unclear which owner wrote this.
In a separate comment, Delamore acknowledged there had been a delay in correcting the spelling of Whatuwhiwhi, and apologised for the "unintended offence".
In another screenshot supplied to Newshub, a post signed off by both co-owners apologised for spelling Whatuwhiwhi wrong - again - but called out "nasty comments" from "haters" who were "jealous".
Multiple other screenshots supplied to Newshub show now-deleted comments warring back-and-forth about the tavern's ownership and their misspelling of te reo.
Newshub also spoke to another Doubtless Bay local, who confirmed that people who voice their opposition to "several instances" of misspelling will frequently have their comments deleted from the Facebook page.
"Many locals have voiced their concerns and disapproval of her behaviour on the Taipa Tavern page, only to have their comments removed," the local told Newshub.
They added that Delamore "absolutely refuses" to apologise for her behaviour.
"When asked to rectify her spelling mistakes, she has refused, and gone on to spell the same place names incorrectly a couple of weeks later," the local alleged.
"When locals have called her out on these posts, she has deleted comments that disagree with her."
The publican's response
After the patron uploaded the footage in the early hours of Monday morning, a post was shared to the Taipa Tavern Facebook page responding to the altercation. The writer of the post - presumably Delamore - referred to the patron as a "troublemaker" and claimed they were now barred from the pub.
The post has since been removed - however, screenshots supplied to Newshub corroborate this.
The post read: "Unfortunately a certain trouble maker that has been barred from our pub plus blocked on our Facebook page came into our bar last night and is saying I'm racist.
"To be honest I'm not surprised of her actions and I can tell anyone that I have never ever been a racist person and never will be."
Newshub attempted to contact Carol Delamore for comment. Upon ringing the Taipa Tavern twice on Tuesday, Newshub was told that Delamore was "away" and staff did not have her mobile number on hand.
A second call on Wednesday was answered by a different staffer who said Delamore hadn't been at the pub since Sunday, but they would let her know Newshub was trying to get in touch.
Further attempts to contact her directly were unsuccessful.
A police spokesperson told Newshub that local authorities had been notified of the incident at the Taipa Tavern shortly before 9pm on Sunday, however police attendance was not required as the matter was resolved.
No formal complaints have been laid in relation to the altercation.
