College students who refused to leave tip experience a hectic two weeks

From Express-Times November 30, 2009

College students who refused to leave tip experience a hectic two weeks

By Express-Times staff

November 30, 2009, 12:35AM

Leslie Pope and John Wagner, a pair of Lehigh Valley college students, watched 15 minutes of fame turn into 30 as the story of their arrest for declining to pay a mandatory service charge on their restaurant tab entered a second week.

Pope, a Moravian College senior, and Wagner, a Lehigh University graduate student, were still attracting interest in the days that followed the charges being dropped by Bethlehem police.

Interviews on CNN and Philadelphia television stations continued into a second week, and radio station and Internet blogs gave their plight momentum long after Pope figured it would subside.

“I had no idea,” Pope said last week about the blazing popularity of their choice to face arrest instead of pay a tip for what they claimed was poor service.

Watch video of Pope and Wagner being interviewed on NBC-10.

Pope's mother fielded many of the media requests from her Pottsville, Pa., home, all following the original Express-Times story that generated nearly 150 comments and nearly 9,000 votes to an online poll question.

Google Trends listed “Lehigh pub” as the 15th most-searched term Nov. 19 and rated it as “On Fire.”

The poll results ran 19-to-1 against the Bethlehem bar and restaurant and the feedback on Yelp.com, a Web site dedicated to reviews by patrons, was mostly unfavorable as well.

“I’ve eaten here a few times in the past two months,” Laura K. wrote in her pub review Nov. 20, “and the table service is not good — slow and inexperienced.”

Laura “L-Train” K., who has reviewed dozens of Lehigh Valley restaurants, did not respond to a request for an interview but her one-star rating spoke volumes.