‘Pawn Star’ Big Hoss, free of Big Bear incident, says he has no beef with anyone

By John Katsilometes

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 | 12:41 p.m.

I think it was Hemingway who said, “The best way to sate a loudmouth at a bar is to ply him with booze.”

But Corey “Big Hoss” Harrison was not in a plying mood on the night of March 20 at Murray’s Saloon & Eatery in Big Bear, Calif. The outcome was that there was an argument. There was some swearing. A bouncer wound up calling law enforcement (a single cop) to the scene. Harrison was asked to apologize and refused.

Thus, the co-star of The History Channel hit “Pawn Stars” was locked up after this verbal dust-up with a bar patron who evidently owns a television and recognized Harrison from the Las Vegas-based pawnshop series. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office investigated the matter and determined, just yesterday, that Harrison’s actions did not rise to the level of criminal behavior and announced (with TMZ breaking the story) that they had dropped the case.

That’s the long and short of it. But Harrison is now free to talk about what happened that night in the resort village, as the criminal case has been sent adrift. He’d been represented by an old family friend, Ben J. Bingham, of the Las Vegas law office of Benson & Bingham. The firm specializes in personal injury cases, but Bingham has experience in criminal cases and helped out Big Hoss in the Big Bear conundrum.

“What happened is they arrested me for no reason,” Harrison said during a phone conversation today. “But I didn’t want to say anything to get into any further trouble. The last thing I wanted was to (tick) off a D.A. and an entire town.”

But today, Harrison was fine with recounting what happened. He’d been snowboarding for much of the day, the snow sport a new distraction as he’s pushing himself into better physical condition (he’s down to a weight of 265 from 350 and still falling). Afterward, he and his close friend, a man known as “Uncle B” who is not actually an uncle but a close family friend, hit Murray’s.

For the first time.

It was quite a visit.

“Big Bear, if you’ve ever been there, has phenomenal snowboarding, but there’s really not much to do after you’re done snowboarding,” the 27-year-old Harrison said. “You either sit in a hot tub with a bunch of people you don’t know, or you go to the bar. I went to the bar.”

He did have a couple of cocktails -- being as it’s a bar -- and soon was on the receiving end of some yammering from someone also seated on one of Murray’s wooden bar stools.

“Me and Uncle B were sitting at the bar and were hearing from this drunk guy, and his whole spiel was that I am on TV, I have money, so I should be buying everybody drinks. I listened to him for about 5 to 10 minutes ranting about this.”

By then, Harrison had made one critical observation.

“This guy was pretty much an a-hole,” he said.

So, no drinks for you!

“I told him, ‘Dude, eff-off. I’m not buying you a drink,” Harrison recalled. “There was some cursing going on, but it never got physical. By the end, I told him, ‘I’m trying to have a good time, I’m having a drink, so shut your mouth. I’m not here to argue with anybody.”

That would not be the end, though. Harrison said a bouncer “who was not doing any bouncing” called a local police officer to the scene.

“The cop tells me, ‘OK, go inside and apologize, and we’ll let you go,’ ” Harrison said. “Apologize for what? He said, ‘You did curse, you did get mad,’ but I’m not going to do it, so I went to jail for it.”

Harrison spent a few hours detained, then returned to retrieve his black Chevy 4-by-4 pickup.

“There were no charges to be had,” he said. “I don’t think I did anything different than anyone else would have done. I’ve got no beef with the Police Department or anyone else there.”

I asked it Harrison might return to Murray’s next snowboarding season.

“If I do,” he said, “I’ll be wearing a big hat and fake mustache.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow "Kats With the Dish" at twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.