Bartender not pursuing charges against Gooding Jr.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A bartender who claimed that Academy Award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. pushed her doesn’t plan to pursue criminal charges against him, managers at a New Orleans bar said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, police issued an arrest warrant on a misdemeanor charge of municipal battery for the 44-year-old Gooding. Police say the bartender at the century-old Old Absinthe House told them that Gooding became upset after patrons started asking him to pose for photos with them at about 3 a.m. The bartender told investigators that Gooding pushed her after she asked him to calm down and again after she told him he should leave and that police had been called.