Friends Sonia, Marla and Monica were having a drink at a nice restaurant in Santa Monica, California when they saw something “not a joke”. Monica noticed a man at another table holding a bottle and spilling some liquid into the date drink as she got up to go to the bathroom.

The women were stunned. “After a few ‘Oh god. What do we do’s’, I got up to find her in the bathroom to tell her,” Sonia explained on Facebook. “Warn her. Tell her to get up and leave this creep. Make him drink it. Something.”

She decided to follow the woman and approach her in the washroom. She told her what her girlfriend had seen and the woman was stunned. When Sonia asked the woman how well she knew the man, she responded, “He’s one of my best friends”.

Sonia rushed back to her two friends and Marla alerted a staff member. Staff security immediately acted and reviewed the security camera footage.

“The poor woman had to sit through 40 more minutes, sitting across from ‘one of her best friends’ knowing that he was trying to drug her,” said Sonia. “Marla noticed him several times chinking his glass to hers to get her to drink. She played it cool.”

When the man and woman finished dinner, Sonia says there was a delay getting their bill. That’s because security was stalling while they waited for Santa Monica PD to arrive. When the police came they took the man away for questioning. What the three friends had done had potentially prevented a date rape!

Sonia, Marla and Monica recount their story in person the news video below.

Sonia said that afterwards, they had fellow diners throughout the restaurant come by and thank them for taking action. She wrote that people told her:

“It happened to my sister…I’m glad I was there to take her home.”
“It happened to my roommate at a producer’s party. He’s still messed up from it.”
“It happened to me. At a backyard barbecue.”
“It happened to me. At a bar I worked at.”

Terrible that something like this could be so common! But Sonia says their story is a reminder for everyone. She wants people to know that “yes, you SHOULD say something. Even if it’s awkward or weird or just uncertain if anything can be done. Know that YOU did something. And that it helped.”

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