Sydney restaurateur beaten, bitten in swarming

A Sydney, N.S. restaurant owner suffered a dog bite, black eyes and a split lip after five men and a pit bull viciously attacked him and one of his employees early Saturday morning.

Amadeo Vallati, owner of Amadeo's Italian Bistro, and a cook were heading home from the restaurant at about 1 a.m., when they were beaten up and left unconscious on the street.

Vallati said the trouble started when he saw a man urinating on a tree beside his truck, at the corner of Bentinck and Townsend streets.

"When the gentleman came at me in the altercation, I proceeded to defend myself and so did my cook and that was fine. It looked like it was going to settle down as a couple of men fighting it off, right, but when he called for his friends, we were out-numbered," Vallati, an executive chef, said.

"Then he called for the dog, and that's what really threw everything in their favour…I ended up unconscious and bitten by the pit bull."

Both men were unconscious when taken to hospital. They were treated and released.

Random act

The dog bit through Vallati's shoe causing a gash in his foot that needed two stitches to pull together, he said. His employee suffered a fractured jaw and a fractured hand.

Vallati said he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I think this was just a random act of a bunch of gentlemen that were intoxicated and high on some sort of drugs and had nothing better to do to target a business owner at one thirty in the morning when he was shutting down his business," he said.

Robbery wasn't the motive, either.

"I had my watch, my iPhone was still there — everything that I had on me was still on me," Vallati said. "I don't see this as a robbery, it was just a random act of rage."

The restaurant on Townsend Street, which just opened on June 3, has been closed since the incident. It will re-open for lunch Tuesday.

The five suspects involved in the assault are in custody. Three of the men have been charged with aggravated assault, Cape Breton Regional Police said.

Police have also laid numerous charges of breach of probation, and more charges are pending.

The men, ranging in age from 21 to 30, will be back in Sydney provincial court on Tuesday.