CALIFORNIA SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWYERS
A 36-year-old woman who works in the kitchen at Napa Valley's
Bistro Don Giovanni is alleging that she was harassed and
assaulted by a fellow kitchen worker for months before the
restaurant did anything about it, and, since the man's firing,
has been retaliated against.
Giovanni Scala, proprietor and co-founder of the restaurant,
didn't deny that the harassment occurred, but said that the
business acted quickly to terminate the alleged perpetrator.
"We have a zero-tolerance policy," Scala said Thursday.
"We let him go when we first found out he was having problems in
the kitchen."
In the lawsuit filed against Napa Valley Restaurant Group, the
owner of Bistro Don Giovanni, in Napa County Superior Court on
April 25, the employee, Martha Patricia Venegas says that she
reported the inappropriate behavior of a kitchen worker to
management multiple times between November 2016 and June 2017.
During that time, the suit alleges, the worker frequently
referred to Venegas as a "f***ing lesbian," asked her if she
shaved her pubic area, commented on her breasts and buttocks,
and, in general, said vulgar things to her and about her in
Spanish, her primary language.
The employee assaulted Venegas, too, the suit alleges. For
example, in February 2017, the employee used tongs to touch her
buttocks, causing her to fall forward into another employee, the
suit asserts. Venegas went to the bathroom and cried, according
to the suit. She complained once again to supervisors and told
them that she had reached her limit - she was going to make a
police report.
The head chef, who is a relative of the employee, according to
the suit, said that he would talk to the woker and told him that
it was his "last chance."
Less than a month later, Venegas was washing lettuce at the sink
when the employee allegedly approached her and grabbed her butt.
A nearby bartender witnessed the assault and told the worker to
stop, according to the suit. Again, Venegas was back in the
bathroom crying.
The employee assaulted her again in April, according to the suit,
by coming up to her, commenting on and then squeezing her
breasts.
Venegas signed multiple forms after making her complaints, but
when she asked to see a copy of one of her complaints and any
related reports, a supervisor said he wasn't sure if he could
give them to her, the suit alleges.
According to the suit, the kitchen worker harassed other women at
the restaurant and repeatedly showed up for work intoxicated.
The employee was finally terminated in June, according to the
suit, after other employees complained about his behavior.
But Venegas' torment wasn't over, according to the suit. the
employee left, but his friends in the kitchen continued to treat
Venegas poorly, upset that he was gone, alleges the suit. One
man, the suit alleges, told the women in the kitchen, including
Venegas, to leave because he didn't want any sexual
harassment.
The suit alleges that, in the following months, Venegas' hours
were reduced, her scheduling became inconsistent, changing at the
last minute, and that her time card was altered.
The "oppressive, hostile, intimidating" work environment caused
Venegas stress, interfering with her well-being and her ability
to perform her job, according to the suit.
"I work really hard to do my job, and didn't deserve to
be treated like this," Venegas said (in Spanish) through her
attorney, Alexis McKenna of Winer, McKenna & Burritt, LLP in
Oakland. "This has caused me a lot of stress and worry. I want to
be respected as a worker and have my workspace respected. It's my
right to have a safe workspace and I haven't felt
safe."
McKenna said that this type of harassment at restaurants,
especially in the back of the house, or the kitchen, isn't
unusual.
"The restaurant industry tends to be rampant with these kinds of
issues," she said. Contributing factors, she said, include
insufficient training, a high turnover rate, poor supervision and
the sheer number of employees.
"It seems like it tends to get worse in the back of the house
where there aren't customers who would see things," McKenna
said.
In this case, she said, although the employee was fired, he
wasn't fired soon enough.
"They should have fired him when she first made a complaint about
it or when they became aware of it," McKenna said. The behaviors
were happening in plain sight, but Venegas still had to complain
several times over a long period of time before the problem was
adequately addressed.
"Several other women had to complain before they finally fired
him," she said. Venegas, who McKenna says still works at the
restaurant, continues to be retaliated against for speaking out
against the worker's alleged behavior.
When asked about the alleged retaliation, Giovanni Scala said
again that the restaurant has "zero tolerance" for things like
that.