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Richland bar settles woman's sex bias lawsuit
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A North Hills restaurant/bar will pay $150,000 to settle a sex discrimination suit, prompted when a former waitress charged that the bar owner wrote the word "tips" on her chest, and that other men untied her halter top, at a golf outing in 2005.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said yesterday that the North Park Lounge Clubhouse, in Richland, agreed to a consent decree, which includes the provision that the bar pay the sum to the former employee in order settle the suit.
The suit said the restaurant violated federal law by condoning a workplace that was hostile toward the employee, who was 19 at the time. The consent decree says all lounge employees must now receive sexual harassment training.
"The facts of this case are a shocking example of how a youth can be violated in a work environment," said Jacqueline McNair, an attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The facts, as laid out in the lawsuit were these: that one of the bar's owners wrote on the woman's chest and drew an arrow pointing toward her breasts. Later on the same day, a group of golfers and a bar manager pinned the woman's arms to her side and untied her top to expose her breasts, since she wouldn't do it voluntarily.
The bar is owned and run by Greg & Deb's Inc.
First Published March 6, 2007 12:00 am
