{"id":292489,"date":"2026-07-10T17:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/292489\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T17:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T17:58:12","slug":"nyc-eatery-babbo-ordered-to-turn-over-video-from-when-scabby-the-rat-mascot-was-knifed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/292489\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC eatery Babbo ordered to turn over video from when \u2018Scabby the Rat\u2019 mascot was knifed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan judge has ordered iconic Greenwich Village restaurant Babbo to hand over video that might identify the person who knifed pro-union inflatable \u201cScabby the Rat\u201d last year<\/a>, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Local 25 claims an employee of the eatery stabbed the gigantic rat during Babbo\u2019s Oct. 27 grand reopening \u2013 but it said it needs the restaurant\u2019s CCTV video footage to prove the allegation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A June 30 Manhattan Supreme Court decision ordered the Italian restaurant to hand over the tape, along with an array of other information, to the union. <\/p>\n

Last year, Babbo was the scene of a crime involving a union inflatable rat. EMMY PARK<\/p>\n

That includes the names of diners, possibly staff members at the restaurant that evening and any texts or emails between employees concerning the incident.<\/p>\n

Local 25 isn\u2019t actually suing Babbo yet. <\/p>\n

But if the video confirms its suspicions, that could change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows that the court is taking this very seriously,\u201d union staffer Mike Haack said of the recent court order.<\/p>\n

Several squad cars pulled up to Babbo after Haack called 911 the night of the attack, and up to 10 officers marched through the dining room looking for a man with a \u201clittle paring knife,\u201d Haack previously told The Post.<\/p>\n

Haack had brought \u201cScabby\u201d to Babbo to protest labor practices by owner Starr Restaurants \u2014 operated by Stephen Starr \u2014 which also owns Buddakan and Pastis.<\/p>\n

\u201cScabby the Rat\u201d was slashed in the thigh last October.<\/p>\n

At the time of the assault on \u201cScabby,\u201d Haack was looking in the other direction when he heard a \u201chissing sound\u201d and observed a man who had just emerged from the restaurant wearing a dark suit similar to the uniform that the wait staff were wearing, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I turned, he\u2019s walking and he is holding a knife \u2013 a little paring knife,\u201d Haack recounted at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the man holding the knife immediately walks back into the restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments later, \u201cScabby\u201d emitted the \u201chissing sound\u201d from an 8-inch hole on its right thigh.<\/p>\n

The police search failed to produce a culprit, and Babbo told the officers they\u2019d need a subpoena to get its surveillance video.<\/p>\n

Stephen Starr of Starr Restaurants operates Babbo and other prominent restaurants. The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Scabby, which costs about $7,000, was patched up after the incident.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe use these large balloon rats to exercise our First Amendment rights,\u201d Haack said.<\/p>\n

Local 25 reps hospitality workers in the Washington, DC, area, where Starr has restaurants the group wants to unionize.<\/p>\n

Starr Restaurants and its legal counsel Troutman Pepper Locke did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Manhattan judge has ordered iconic Greenwich Village restaurant Babbo to hand over video that might identify the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1805,288,4327,57,9,56,63,65,64,103,821,14646,3555],"class_list":["post-292489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-babbo","tag-business","tag-manhattan-supreme-court","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nypd","tag-restaurants","tag-stephen-starr","tag-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}