A Queenstown restaurant owner who says that "millionaire mongrels - young, dumb and full of cash" are "ruining our town" claims he was assaulted by a visiting Australian AFL player.
Danny Carson said the majority of public disorder incidents in Queenstown were committed by visitors "treating our town like a toilet ... people in Queenstown feel disrespected."
The incident in which he says he was assaulted occurred when Mr Carson claims he came upon a man, accompanied by two women, urinating in the doorway of the Champions of the World rugby shop about 1.30am on January 23.
Mr Carson said he and his wife, Lizzie, had had two drinks each at the Ballarat Bar after a night shift then went to the Queenstown Mall to visit another bar.
When he swore and told the man to stop urinating in the shop doorway, he claims he was "flattened" with one punch by a member of the St Kilda AFL team, which was in town at a training camp.
He said he and his wife identified the man from a newspaper photograph.
St Kilda Club football manager Greg Hutchison said the player alleged to be involved had not been and said the incident "definitely didn't happen".
"Instead of making allegations in the media, he needs to go to the police and make a formal complaint and I'm happy for him to do it," Mr Hutchison said yesterday.
Mr Carson says he will not lodge a complaint with police because it goes against his "Westie" philosophy.
"The reason I haven't complained to police is that I've been living in Queenstown for 20 years; prior to that, I'm from West Auckland and if you confront somebody and get the slap, you deal with it there and then. I'm a Westie - we don't involve the police," he said.
Queenstown police yesterday confirmed no complaint had been received in relation to Mr Carson's allegation.
The accusation follows the club's disciplining of four players who attended the Queenstown training camp and who were fined $5000 after it was found they breached team behavioural standards in an unrelated incident in Queenstown last Thursday.
