Independent New Taipei City Councilor Adrean Lee (李婉鈺) yesterday apologized for an incident at a car wash on Tuesday where she was caught on film slapping a man and confronting several other people.
Witnesses have said that Lee was rambling when she entered the car wash in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), asking for “one more drink,” and telling people that she was a city councilor.
Lee posted a statement on Wednesday on Facebook saying that she had had too much to drink, had no recollection of the incident, but was very sorry for having interrupted the festivities of others by her actions.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
She told reporters yesterday that she had to make more than 10 public appearances per day during the Mid-Autumn Festival period and there was drinking involved at every one.
Lee said she was in the habit of pulling over if she was driving to greet friends if she saw them on the sidewalk.
However, she said that on Tuesday she “did not know that she was drunk” and did not expect such an incident to occur.
She said she only realized she had gotten into a scuffle with others when she woke up on Wednesday and found bruises and scratches on her body, adding that she had no recollection of the night before.
Regardless, she was in the wrong and so she wanted to extend her apologies to those who supported her and the people who she had upset, she said.
Debate on the Internet over the incident escalated yesterday as people traded insults on Lee’s Facebook page.
Some people posted that Lee was of no benefit to the municipality and was living off the people she is supposed to be serving by barging into their private parties.
One person wrote that given her drinking habits, Lee should be working as a bar hostess, where she might better serve Banciao residents.
That post drew a response from the administrator, who wrote: “Shut your foul mouth, bitch.”
When others posted that government officials should behave better when responding to the public, Lee or someone posting as her, replied that the individual had been the first to start the name-calling.
Other netizens said they had not expected city councilors to act so emotionally outside city hall.
Lee told reporters yesterday that she took full responsibility for all comments posted on her Facebook page, but that the comment suggesting that she should work at a bar was a personal affront and she would seek legal action against the person who made the comment.
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