A group of 17 women celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday Saturday at AJ’s Restaurant & Bar were not expecting what happened.

Eastern student Elyse Wilson said while sitting in a private room of the restaurant, located at 1405 Fourth St., a man entered the room and exposed himself.

When the manager was summoned to the table, he said, “What did you expect in a drunken college town?”

The man was eventually asked to leave the restaurant, Wilson said, but the restaurant did not report the incident to police.

“We would have called the police if we knew they wouldn’t,” she said.

The group will be filing a police report, she added.

Interim Police Chief Mark Jenkins said in this type of situation charges of lewd conduct and disorderly conduct could possibly be filed.

Wilson said the reason why her group of friends went to AJ’s was because it is the nicest restaurant in town and did not expect something like that to happen there.

The man was apparently with a bar crawl that was on the lower level of the restaurant.

The men’s room is located on the upper floor of the restaurant near the private room.

The man appeared intoxicated and walked over to the table. He then dropped his pants around his ankles, exposing himself to the whole table, while eight friends watched him, Wilson said.

He apparently was trying to get the table to “egg” him on, Wilson said.

The servers of the party did nothing and they saw the whole incident, she added.

Another person from the bar crawl who witnessed the event went in front of the table and bent over as if “farting” on the table, she added.

The party did not receive an apology from the restaurant except from one of the servers who was laughing about it, Wilson said.

Repeated attempts to contact AJ’s owner Michael Boska were unsuccessful.

Over the unofficial St. Patrick’s Day weekend, calls to both Charleston and University police departments increased.

Jenkins said calls over the weekend were busier then the past two months but not unusual.

“I won’t say anymore then on a nice weekend in April,” he said.

Part of the increase was because of unofficial St. Patrick’s Day.

Jenkins didn’t recall unofficial St. Patrick’s Day happening in previous years, but said Friday and Saturday were busy.

With St. Patrick’s Day on the first day back from spring break, Jenkins doesn’t expect problems with the holiday on a Monday.

University Police Chief Adam Due said the department had a little extra activity over the weekend and it was just because of more calls, not unofficial St. Patrick’s Day.

Bars in town did not report any unusual activity.

Adam Miranda, manager at Mac’s Uptowner, 623 Monroe Ave., described the weekend as “usual.”

“It was a normal weekend with a bar crawl,” he said.

Matt Hopf can be reached at 581-7945 or at mthopf@eiu.edu.