Mayor Tory Whanau denies waiter’s claim she was drunk and asked, ‘do you know who I am?’

Monday, 3 July 2023

An allegedly intoxicated Wellington mayor Tory Whanau asked staff at a Wellington restaurant if they knew who she was before she left without paying the bill, the waiter serving her says.

In a written statement on Sunday, Whanau “strenuously” denied accusations about her conduct but did not comment on whether she was intoxicated on Friday evening at the Old Quarter on Dixon St.

“The Old Quarter is one of my favourite restaurants. I'm a regular patron,” she said. “I am so embarrassed that we walked out without paying. It was an honest mistake, one that we corrected the next morning.”

The Old Quarter manager Shay Lomas confirmed that Whanau came in about 7pm on Friday with a friend and was a “bit tipsy”. Staff considered not serving her but decided that, because she was dining, it would be okay.

Under the law, intoxicated people can not be served in licensed premises.

They ordered a bottle of wine and food and sat at an outside table on Dixon St, Lomas said.

She was later “a bit more drunk“ and staff had decided to “cut them off”, he said, though had not yet told the mayor. They then realised she and her friend had left. The friend got in touch the following day and paid the $140 bill, Lomas said.

Andrew Jenkins, who served her, said he had no issues with the mayor but was taken aback by her behaviour on Friday night.

He said the mayor and the woman she was with became progressively more intoxicated and he brought them a carafe of water to sober them up.

“She came up to me holding her bottle of wine. She said, ‘do you know who I am?’,” Jenkins said.

He did not but asked if she was an MP. She allegedly replied, “I’m the mayor, can you do your thing?,” he said. He could only speculate what the thing was.

He came back outside and the two women had left without paying, with other customers saying they had gone to a nearby bar. The restaurant manager went to the bar but could not find the mayor, he said.

Customers afterwards commented to him on her rudeness and confirmed her identity, Jenkins said.

“The mayor of Wellington just walked out on us,” he said.

Whanau had good reason to celebrate on Friday, a day after arguably her most decisive win around the Wellington City Council table in which she defeated a move for the council to withdraw from Let’s Get Wellington Moving, then winning a vote for the council to fund its shares of the programme’s Golden Mile and Thorndon quay revamps.

The infrastructure specialist who Whanau was thought to be with on Friday and is understood to have picked up the tab the following day would not comment when called on Sunday: “I’m not really interested in being part of the story,” she said.

Talking to Newshub recently Whanau was open about her partying.

“I’m 40, I’m single. I love our hospitality scene and every couple of weeks I like to head out with my mates and hit a couple of bars,” she said.

The situation has echoes of former National Party MP Aaron Gilmore who in 2013 at a National Party conference reportedly asked the waiter, “Do you know who I am?”

He then threatened to have the then-prime minister Sir John Key intervene and have the waiter sacked, it was reported. The list MP was forced to resign after it was revealed he had lied to the prime minister over his behaviour.