Hey NYCers! It's perfectly OK to grope women and make fun of blacks and Hispanics!

[kay1864]

If you work at Tavern on the Green, that is. BUT there is that pesky $2 million fine...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's landmark Tavern on the Green in Central Park has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a sexual and racial discrimination lawsuit, a U.S. agency said on Monday.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said pervasive harassment of employees had occurred at the restaurant, including epithets aimed at blacks, the ridiculing of Hispanic accents and groping women's breasts and buttocks.

The harassment was perpetrated by staff at all levels including top management and line workers, the EEOC said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080602/us_nm/tavern_harassment_dc

Seriously, is this NY's version of the Atlanta place that sells the Curious George Obama t-shirts? Is it a place where liberals aren't welcome? Or is the above behavior confined to the staff?

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. IIRC, they're about to change owners. That would explain the publicity n/t

[kay1864]

2. Wonder if they're changing staff too

'twould be the right thing to do--fire all the people found guilty by the EEOC.

So is it a haven for knuckle-draggers, or is it just the staff?

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. Politically well-connected, I assume. Here's more

With Tavern on the Green's lease up at the end of the year, it's fun to dream about how much better the place might be under an owner other than Jennifer LeRoy, who has run the cyclopean eatery since her dad, Warner LeRoy, died in 2001.

Fun - but maybe delusional. The brick-and-crystal palace in Central Park has enough built-in liabilities to scare off the most dauntless restaurateur. Still, the names of supposed suitors keep coming.

...

It's a union shop with most of 470-plus employees covered by infamously difficult Local 6.

...

Even the see-no-evil Zagat Survey calls it “more spectacle than restaurant" and socks it with a food rating of 15 on a scale of 30.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01162008/entertainment/food/not_easy_being_green_908057.htm?page=1

[kwassa]

3. This is a famous old restaurant in New York

in Central Park, I believe, or on the edge of it. Hoity-toity, not low-class.

take a look at the website

http://www.tavernonthegreen.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavern_on_the_Green

Tavern on the Green is a restaurant located in Central Park, New York City, in the United States.

With 2007 gross revenues of $38 million, from more than 500,000 visitors, it is the second highest-grossing independently-owned restaurant in the United States (behind The Venetian's Tao restaurant in Las Vegas, at $67 million).<1><2> Of the several dining rooms, the most famous is the Crystal Room, which features windows overlooking the restaurant's adjacent garden in Central Park.<3>

The restaurant is located in New York City's Central Park at Central Park West and West 67th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was originally the Sheepfold that housed the sheep that grazed Sheep Meadow, built to a design by Calvert Vaux in 1870. It became a restaurant as part of a 1934 renovation of the park under Robert Moses, New York City's Commissioner of Parks. In 1974, Warner LeRoy took over the restaurant's lease and reopened it in 1976 after $10 million in renovations. Since LeRoy's death in 2001, it has been managed by his daughter, Jennifer Oz LeRoy.

Tavern on the Green is known for being frequented by numerous prominent actors, musicians, politicians, and writers.