Records show sexual harassment is common in Ontario restaurants
Ottawa chef Matthew Carmichael is not alone in abusing the power that comes with success in the restaurant industry.
On the same week that Carmichael admitted to sexually harassing three women at his acclaimed Ottawa restaurants, John Besh, a high-profile New Orleans chef, stepped down from the restaurant empire that he founded after 25 current and former female employees levelled sexual harassment allegations.
Besh made the announcement Monday, days after The TimesPicayune published stories that described a workplace rife with unwanted sexual touching and lewd comments from chefs and managers.
Several employees have said Besh tried to coerce them into sex — allegations that he has denied.
Like Besh, Carmichael has taken a step back from his quartet of Ottawa restaurants — Riviera, Datsun and two El Camino locations — while he deals with the substance abuse he says contributed to his behaviour.
Carmichael and Besh are both stars in the restaurant industry. But a review of records from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario suggests similar problems exist in much more modest kitchens, cafés and bars across the province.
In the past four years, the tribunal has dealt with more than a dozen sexual harassment complaints from restaurant staff. Among them: In June 2016, the tribunal awarded almost $30,000 in damages and lost wages to De Ana Granes, a server at the Houston Avenue Bar and Grill in Barrie because of inappropriate sexual comments and touching by one of the restaurant’s co-owners, Rajneesh Dutta. Drunk at his own restaurant, Dutta propositioned Granes, tried to kiss her and groped her in front of other staff members. “My back was turned,” Granes testified. “He came up beside me, put his arm on my arm and grabbed my right boob. It wasn’t a graze.” She resigned when her complaints were ignored.
In September 2015, Toronto pastry chef Kate Burnham reached a confidential settlement with the owners of Weslodge Saloon, a high-end downtown restaurant, after alleging sexual harassment by three former bosses. Burham said the harassment went on for a year and a half and included repeated jokes about her sexual orientation along with regular groping incidents. A former chef, her application alleged, would “reach through her legs to grab her crotch and hold it while humping her from behind.” The allegations in the complaint were denied.
In July 2015, Hayley Dacosta was awarded $17,000 in damages for the sexual harassment she suffered at Crabby Joe’s Tap and Grill in Napanee. Dacosta said she was harassed by the restaurant’s general manager who slapped her on the buttocks and put his genitals on her shoulder when she knelt down to get something out of the fridge. Dacosta quit her job and went to work elsewhere.
In March 2015, the tribunal awarded Julie Costigane $1,000 in damages for the sexual harassment that she faced upon trying to collect unpaid wages for her work as a sous chef at Toronto’s Nyood Restaurant and Bar. The former owner, Moise Bensadouin, called her a “b----” and a “c---” — actions the tribunal found constituted sexual harassment.
In April 2013, bartender Deborah Smith was awarded $35,000 in damages and almost $5,000 in lost wages after being propositioned, sexually harassed then fired by Bruce Dorman, owner and manager of The Rover’s Rest in Ajax. Smith testified that Dorman was particularly fixated on her buttocks and “frequently patted her buttocks with his hand, made noises when she bent over and told her that she had a ‘nice ass.’” He became jealous when she flirted with a bar patron, sent her profane letters and fired her for insubordination.
In April 2013, Toronto waitress Hilary Vipond was awarded $18,000 for the sexual harassment and unwanted advances that she endured at the Ben Wicks Pub and Bistro. The tribunal heard that David Doherty, the pub’s manager, became so drunk that he passed out in a booth. When she woke him, he massaged her hands, tried to kiss her and offered to perform oral sex. After the incident, the woman’s weekly hours dwindled because she refused to work a closing shift with him again. She eventually quit.
Experts say female restaurant workers are susceptible to sexual harassment because management tends to be dominated by men, while kitchens are often macho places that embrace heavy drinking and lewd behaviour. “The ‘bro’ culture in kitchens is so deeply entrenched that it has become second nature for many of the people who work there,” Toronto restaurateur and author Jen Agg wrote this week in The New Yorker. “Cooks are just ‘just boys,’ ‘blowing off steam’ in an impossibly high-pressure, physically demanding environment.”
Agg said the only way to change the culture is to put more women into leadership roles in kitchens and management.
The ‘ bro’ culture ... is so deeply entrenched that it has become second nature for many of the people who work there.