Accusations of racism turned a weekend at a Wild Coast resort into an angry tussle between the female manager and a guest, Dispatch Online reported on Friday.
Now the guest and her party of 14 friends — all Indians — have been banned from the hotel for life.
Seagulls Hotel co-owner Annatjie Dewberry was apparently restrained by another guest, known only as a Mr Gounden, when she flew at his friend, Charlene Hendricks.
But the scrap did not end there and continued this week in words — with both parties calling each other racist liars in letters.
”You can thank your lucky stars that Mr Gounden did interfere,” wrote Dewberry’s unrepentant husband, Rod, in a hand-delivered letter.
He confirmed that his wife grabbed Hendricks but defended her, claiming she had been antagonised.
The trouble began when Hendricks arrived with her friends at the hotel on Friday afternoon: ”I don’t like to point it out, but all of us were Indians.”
She claims they were not greeted by managers. When a few of them took a walk around the hotel and bumped into Rod Dewberry, he asked them what they were looking for — ”as if we were snooping around”.
On Saturday things got worse, said Hendricks, when the Dewberrys only socialised with their white guests.
But Dewberry said they were celebrating the 60th birthday of an old friend with some other friends and regular guests.
He dismissed talk of a racial divide, saying Hendricks probably resented being left out of someone else’s party.
He said it was ”a figment of your own, obviously fertile imagination”.
On Sunday morning, things got physical, after Hendricks reported missing items, including clothes, medication and a watch.
Dewberry said he could not recall a single theft by a staff member and that a warning in all rooms advising guests to lock their doors was because he suspected outsiders after previous petty theft reports.
After the party left, he said, a receptionist found a missing tracksuit under a pillow. He returned it and some medication to Hendricks with his letter this week.
He dismissed her allegations of racism and pointed out that he and his wife have many black friends.
”Maybe it’s time you caught a wake-up and joined the new South Africa,” he said. — Sapa