A stone fight at Vaitele during the weekend has left a local business badly damaged and residents in shock.

The refurbished Bluebird Lumber Hardware Company at Vaitele was the victim of a fight between the youth of Toamua and five men from Afega on Saturday night,

According to an eyewitness who spoke to the Samoa Observer on the condition of anonymity, the fight started because of a drunken youth.

 “The brothers from Afega usually sell fish in front of Lisa’s Shop,” he said.

“On that night, the brothers had just finished selling their fish but one of them was holding fish to take home.

“One of the youths from Toamua approached him and told him to give the fish but he (fish seller) refused. That’s when the drunken guy punched him in the face and the fish seller fell to the ground.”

 “The fish seller’s brothers jumped in and started beating up the drunken youth. A friend of the drunken guy jumped in and the brothers beat him up as well.”

According to the eye witness, the two ran away and everyone thought the commotion was over.

 “About ten minutes later, we saw this whole group of youths, more than 20 came with rocks and they were screaming nonsense,” said the witness.

“They came and went straight to the brothers. They started throwing rocks and so everyone that was in front of Lisa’s shop ran away.

The shop owner closed his shop.

“There were so many of them and they ruined everything. Then they continued in front of Bluebird and because there were a lot of them, we didn’t see who threw rocks at Bluebird.

“The brothers managed to fight them off. We called the police but when they arrived, the fight had calmed down.

“One of the matais of Toamua was able to get down here to calm everyone down.”

In an interview with the Bluebird Branch Manager, Kitiona Tiatia, he said he was very saddened by the damage done to their property.

“Our night security rang me that night and when I arrived here, our windows were broken from stones,” he said.

“At the moment the company is fixing the damage while we wait for the police and their investigation because we cannot leave our shop like this.

“We don’t know for sure who threw the rocks.”

Attempts to get a comment from the Police were unsuccessful.