SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — A Sandy Springs nightclub faces a federal lawsuit alleging managers repeatedly subjected female employees to a sexually hostile work environment.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a suit against Taboo 2 Bistro and Bar on Roswell Road on behalf of five former waitresses and bartenders at the club.
“My breasts have been grabbed, my vaginal area has been touched,” said Ms. Tompkins, who asked Channel 2’s Mike Petchenik only to identify her by her last name. “My butt has been grabbed. I’ve been asked for sexual favors.”
Tompkins and others who spoke to Petchenik said if they didn’t comply, they’d be ridiculed.
They alleged the women who acquiesced were given better shifts and more lucrative assignments.
“You have to come to work, you have to fight for money,” Tompkins said. “You have to fight to get away from your boss, you may not make any money.”
Former employee, Ms. Mitchell, echoed that concern.
“If I turned down an offer, I could go home with next to nothing that night,” she told Petchenik.“That’s hard when you have bills to pay.”
A former employee, who asked not to be named at all, told Petchenik she was blackmailed into making up stories to protect her employer.
“Their master plan was to make it seem like all the girls were prostitutes,” she said. “They're selling themselves and we had to make it believable.”
The woman said the club’s attorney asked her to sign an affidavit to back up the story, and even sent one to her brother, who was in the Army, to make it seem more credible.
“He said the only way for me to keep my job was if I participated,” she said. “Enough is enough. I need to tell the truth.”
When the woman went to authorities, she said she was fired.
“This is why I kept it a secret for this long because I was afraid of this. And now I have nothing,” she said. “I feel so bad. I just want to say I’m really sorry. To everyone, I’m really sorry.”
EEOC trial attorney Sairalina Montesino said her agency got involved because of the egregious nature of the evidence.
“We thought it was important for the community to know that these women should be able to come to work without having to be subjected to unlawful sexual harassment,” she said.
Montesino said the lawsuit is seeking damages for the women, as well as mandatory training for management and employees about sexual harassment in the workplace.
“I’ve seen a lot of different types of sexual harassment cases, but this one was particularly disturbing,” she said. “In this situation, management was completely abusing their power.”
Labor and employment attorney Peter Golden is also representing the accusers. Golden told Petchenik the EEOC wouldn’t have gotten involved if its investigation hadn’t turned up concerning evidence.
“It took a lot for them to finally go to management,” he said of the accusers. “It took a lot more for them to finally stand up. It took a heck of a lot more for them to agree to file lawsuits.”
An attorney for the club e-mailed Petchenik a statement about the lawsuit:
“My client vigorously denies the allegations in the lawsuit and looks forward to rebutting the allegations and vindicating itself in Court,” Kenneth Sokolov said.
Last week, an attorney for the women asked the Sandy Springs City Council to deny the club’s liquor license application.
The council, however, approved the license for a 60-day provisional period, and officials said they will revisit the issue in November.