East Lyme ― Police on Monday arrested a local restaurant owner on numerous charges after they said he pulled a gun on two people outside of Smokey O’Grady’s shortly after midnight.

Police charged Besmir Kami, 38, of 11 Wayne Drive, with one count of first-degree stalking and two counts each of first-degree threatening, second-degree threatening, first-degree breach of peace, first-degree harassment and first-degree reckless endangerment.

Kami is the owner of Il Pomod’Oro Restaurant and Pizzeria in town.

According to the arraignment affidavit, police were called to the bar at 12:39 a.m. for a report of a threatening incident involving a firearm. In an interview at the police station later, a woman identified in the police report as Kami’s ex-girlfriend told police she had been getting into her car in a parking lot adjacent to the bar after leaving with a male patron. That’s when Kami pulled into the lot and tried to confront the other man, but was unsuccessful.

The man, identified in the report as the second victim, said Kami pulled a handgun out of the driver’s door pocket after the woman told Kami to leave. He said Kami “racked” the gun ― pulling back the slide to chamber the next round ― and said, “I’m gonna kill you” as he approached them.

The woman said Kami left when she pushed him away and told him he needed to leave.

She told police Kami had been stalking her since she broke up with him two months ago. He had stopped in the bar that evening for a beer while the two victims were sitting at the bar and left about 20 minutes before they did, according to the report.

Kami, in an interview at the station that morning, acknowledged a confrontation but denied having a gun in his car. The interview ended when he asked for a lawyer and was arrested.

In a phone interview Monday night, Kami said the woman was not his girlfriend.

“Some of that stuff is not real and not true,” he said. “It was an altercation, and what happened, happened.”

“She was not my girlfriend. We saw each other a couple times. But I didn’t stalk her,” he went on to say.

Police said Kami was released on a $125,000 bond. He appeared Monday in New London Superior Court on the stalking charge and was scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 6 on the other charges.

e.regan@theday.com