California landlords threw a cocktail party to celebrate the return of evictions. It ended in a fistfight.

• A landlords' association in Berkeley held a party to celebrate the end of an eviction moratorium.
• Groups representing tenants in the city picketed the event.

A cocktail party thrown by the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA) to celebrate the end of the California city's eviction moratorium got out of hand, with a fistfight breaking out, according to the local newspaper SFGATE.

The landlords' group held the party, which was attended by about two dozen landlords, at the Freehouse in Berkeley on Wednesday evening, local media outlet Berkeleyside reported.

When the event was initially announced, it was criticized online by local activist groups.

Alfred Twu, a local Democratic Party delegate, said in an X post that it had to be "one of the most tasteless events I've ever heard of."

About 100 advocates from various groups, including the Berkeley Tenants Union and the Tenant and Neighborhood Council, turned up to picket the event, Berkeleyside reported.

The outlet said the protesters called landlords in attendance "parasites" and yelled chants.

Photos shared by the Tenant and Neighborhood Councils show that protesters also brought a cake iced with the message: "Hey landlords, get a real job!"

The picketers eventually entered the venue, circling around the patio where the landlords were convening, Berkeleyside reported.

According to the local media outlet, the protests lasted for a little over a minute before "multiple" fights broke out.

Videos reviewed by Berkeleyside and SFGATE, which Insider has not seen, reportedly showed a male attendee slapping a female picketer in the face and pushing her.

Another video seen by Berkeleyside showed a picketer knocking somebody's glasses off their head, as well as a party guest swinging a punch at a protester, the local media outlet said.

Protesters left the venue shortly after the fights broke out, according to Berkeleyside.

The BPOA did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, but in a statement posted on social media it said: "We condemn the actions of hostile dissidents who disrupted a private gathering at a local restaurant to intimidate, harass, and physically assault our members who are law-abiding small business owners."

The association accused local police, who also did not respond to Insider's request for comment, of doing little to stop the violence.

The Tenant and Neighborhood Councils and the Berkeley Tenants Union said in a series of social media posts that their members were the ones who were physically assaulted. Neither group responded to Insider's requests for comment.

The eviction moratorium was introduced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and offered eviction protections to tenants across the city. It ended on August 31 this year.

Until May, it essentially banned all evictions except for those that involved a landlord going out of business or those that related to health and safety concerns.

However, in the past few months a transition period allowed evictions that involved a landlord wanting to move into an occupied unit or for tenants who hadn't paid rent for reasons unrelated to COVID-19.