New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell is denying claims he and his friend told a security guard "we are above the law" after being asked to leave a bar on Saturday.
Mitchell admits he was booted out of a Tauranga bar late that night but denies accidentally hitting a female bartender with a glass making her cry.
He says it's a politically motivated attack and he's the victim.
Security guard John Domoney, who was working at the Brew Co bar last Saturday, told Newshub Mitchell was asked repeatedly to move from an area where bar staff needed to pass through to clear glasses.
"A female staff member came out the front crying and upset and she said one of the guys from that group, which was Clayton, had hit her on the side of the head with a glass and spilled his drink on her," he said.
"It wasn't an assault - it was more accidental."
"That is absolutely not true," Mitchell said on Thursday. "That is fake news; that didn't happen."
Domoney said Mitchell and his friend refused to leave, and when it was suggested that the police could be called, he said one of them replied: "We are the law".
"That is another absolutely egregious claim that did not happen," Mitchell said.
Eventually, Mitchell and his friend were cut off from buying drinks.
"Everything just started kicking-off," Domoney said.
"He started pushing and shoving and his big mate started pushing my brother and that's when they got really aggressive and we had to physically remove them from the bar."
Another witnesses told Newshub Mitchell was intoxicated and Domoney said he was "being a bit of a dick".
Mitchell defended himself, saying, "If standing at a bar that is busy [and] ordering a drink is being a dick, then I think they need to talk to their security about their behaviour."
Mitchell has been convicted of assault before, after refusing a gang member entry to a bar he owned in the 1990s.
Today, he claims to be the victim, saying, "I was grabbed quite forcefully by these buffoons".
It has hues of the Aaron Gilmore saga: the National MP who was forced to resign in 2013 for drunkenly asking a waiter, "Don't you know who I am?" when he was refused more booze.
But Mitchell's boss New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is backing him.
"You're just scaremongering and making this up as you go along," Peters said on Thursday, when Newshub put questions to him about the accusations.
He said the accusations of Mitchell being physically removed from the bar were "totally untrue", and said to "wait and see the video".
Peters is promising a screening of the CCTV footage.
"You'll all see the video of the event if you turn up at that bar next Saturday night."
The bar owner is Mitchell's good friend and says there was no fight. But he wouldn't show Newshub the footage.
As for whether Mitchell will apologise, no way.
"Absolutely not," he said. "I'm expecting an apology from security."
Newshub.
