As part of a settlement brokered by the attorney general’s office, the owner, Hakan Karamahmutoglu, will pay $500,000 to share among at least 16 employees for violating state and city human rights and labor laws, Ms. James said. on Wednesday at a press conference. “For too long, hospitality workers have had to deal with a pervasive culture of sexual harassment and discrimination that has gone unreported,” she said in a statement. “Every New Yorker should be able to go to work without fear of abuse and degradation regardless of industry.” Mr Karamahmoutoglou said in a statement that many of the allegations are untrue or grossly misleading and do not reflect his character or outlook. He said he signed the agreement last Thursday as a way to avoid the costs of an ongoing investigation, avoid future appeals and allow everyone to move forward. “I have given back to the community and city I love and employed hundreds of employees from all backgrounds,” his statement said. “We will continue to welcome everyone in a positive and inclusive environment. Those who know me will know this to be true, and I ask those who don’t know me not to be too quick to judge.” The investigation began in early 2021 after several women who worked at the bar banded together and spoke to a lawyer, who led them to the attorney general’s office. The investigation included dozens of interviews with former and current employees. One was Katy Guest, 33, a former bartender at Sweet & Vicious, who said she was surprised that the harassment she and others regularly experienced would matter to the attorney general. “We basically didn’t know that someone at this level of power would put a spotlight on these things that happen every day in the hospitality industry,” she said in an interview. “It’s been going on behind closed doors for so long that we just got used to it.” The bar, on Spring Street in NoLIta, was a hotbed of harassment from both managers and customers, Ms. James said. According to her findings, the owner regularly insulted the female employees, calling them “bitches” and “cows” and scrutinized their appearance, commenting on their bodies and clothing. He also called the workers “terrorists”, “scumbags” and “trash”, Ms James said. In audio messages left on an employee’s WhatsApp account in 2020 and shared with the New York Times, Mr Karamahmutoglu said women who worked for him had to be beautiful, thin and active. He wanted bartenders who were “tall, blonde, beautiful and sexy like the women who worked in the bars in Ibiza”. Kim Anderson, who tended bar at the often crowded bar and restaurant for six months in 2019 to help pay her graduate school bills, said: “There was a lot of pressure to behave a certain way, to dress provocatively and look a certain way. .” She suspected she didn’t have the best shifts because she didn’t present herself the way management wanted her to. she said, for example, that she was often told to wear more makeup. The bar managers were almost exclusively male. Some, according to the settlement document, routinely made unwanted sexual projections, including a manager who repeatedly rubbed his genitals on his employees and another who announced the color of a female employee’s underwear and stated in vulgar terms that he wanted to have sex together her. Management tolerated customers who threatened to stab, rape and beat employees, the attorney general alleged. He said the owner and managers often used racial and gay slurs when talking about workers. Poor working conditions reported in the survey included eight-hour shifts where bartenders were on their feet without breaks, working weeks exceeding 40 hours with no overtime, a stricter code of conduct for female bartenders than male bartenders, and instances where tips were left at credit lines cards never reached the workers. The settlement requires Sweet & Vicious to revise its anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training materials and display notices of anti-discrimination and anti-harassment rights and responsibilities. The owner must submit periodic reports to the attorney general’s office showing that the company is complying with the terms of the settlement. The investigation is the latest in a series of state investigations targeting sexual abuse and harassment in the hospitality industry. The first came in January 2020, when Ken Friedman, the principal owner of the Spotted Pig restaurant in Manhattan, agreed to pay $240,000 and a share of his profits to 11 former employees who had accused him of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation . Chef Mario Batali and his former partner Joe Bastianich were next. In July 2021, Ms. James said the two presided over a sexualized culture so rife with harassment and retaliation that it violated state and city human rights laws. The two men and Pasta Resources, the company formerly known as Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group, have agreed to pay a total of $600,000 to at least 20 women and men who said they were sexually harassed while working at Manhattan restaurants Babbo, Lupa or Del Posto. , which until it closed for good in 2021, was the crown jewel among men’s entries.
