Page One

Police say two should be happy morning scuffle didn’t slice them

By Ben Lumpkin Daily Planet staff
Thursday May 03, 2001

Are you wondering about those two men you saw plunging through the giant plate glass window of north Berkeley’s famous Cheese Board Pizza Wednesday morning? 

No, that was not the carefully choreographed violence of a Hollywood film crew.  

During the morning rush for coffee and pastries at The Cheese Board, right next-door to Cheese Board Pizza, two “mental midgets” got into a shouting match over the last free chair around the restaurant’s sidewalk tables, said Berkeley Police Lt. Russell Lopes. 

A number of muffled obscenities later, the shouting escalated to pushing, and both men fell through the window into the Pizza Board, which was not yet open for business. 

As if borrowing one Hollywood cliché were not enough, both men walked away from the incident with nothing worse than minor cuts, Lopes said. 

“They could have been sliced to ribbons,” Lopes said.  

“All that glass up top has got to come down, (and) it comes down like a guillotine.” 

Yeshi Tenzin, a member of the collective that owns The Cheese Board and Cheese Board Pizza, estimated that the window was about 15 feet high and 10 feet wide. He said it could cost $1,500 or more to replace. 

The Cheese Board proprietors decided not to press charges against the two men. 

“They were our customers,” Tenzin said. “They just did a stupid thing.” 

Besides, said Tenzin, (Wednesday) was a beautiful day for open air dining.  

“It’s really fun to have that open,” he said. “I’m sure the customers had a good time.”