Chauntyll Allen, a St. Paul school board member and Black Lives Matter activist, was asked to leave a Golden Valley restaurant on Monday by police responding to a report of alleged "customer trouble."
Allen, who posted a video about the interaction with an officer on Facebook, said that she was with a group that had asked the staff to clean a grill at Benihana, and that the incident, instead, was one of discrimination.
The two sides differed over how to resolve the situation, leading the restaurant to ask the group to leave and then to call police at 4:33 p.m.
In the video, the officer refers to possible unruly behavior while Allen says that the group could not be denied service based on discrimination.
Because the group left, they were not subject to possible "enforcement action," nor did police witness any wrongdoing, said Joanne Paul, crime analyst and support services supervisor for Golden Valley police.
In a statement, Jeannie Means, vice president of marketing for Benihana Inc. in Aventura, Fla., said the company had received a "guest communication" about the incident.
"We take these matters very seriously and we are in contact with these guests as part of a thorough investigation into the matter," she said.
Anthony Lonetree
