NYC Restaurant Must Serve Up $500K To Sexual Harassment Victims: AG

NEW YORK CITY — The Manhattan bar Sweet & Vicious would be more aptly named "toxic" and "dangerous", at least according to a blistering denunciation unleashed by Attorney General Letitia James.

James announced Wednesday that the Nolita bar's owner — Hakan Karamahmutoglu — must pay $500,000 to 16 current and former employees after investigators found he oversaw a hostile workplace in which all types of harassment and discrimination ran rampant.

During a news conference, James said Karamahmutoglu insisted on hiring woman bartenders who were "tall, blonde, beautiful, sexy." She played damning recordings of Karamahmutoglu in which he repeatedly described the women he hired in degrading and objectifying ways.

"We need pretty girls," he said in one recording.

"What's the name of the girl I don't like? Dress like a r-----, don't talk to customers and stuff," he said in another.

The settlement is the result of a 16-month probe by Office of the Attorney General investigators into the Spring Street bar.

They found ample evidence of sexual discrimination and harassment, racial discrimination, wage theft, and more, according to the document.

James said Karamahmutoglu called his women employees "cows" and "b------," and turned a blind eye to his male employees' sexual harassment. At one point, a male employee loudly announced the color of woman bartender's underwear and graphically stated he would like to have sex with her, she said.

"One manager blocked a female employee's entrance to the bar and demanded that she kiss him to get through," settlement documents state. "He sloppily kissed her on the cheek and then made excuses to go
behind the bar to graze his body against hers."

Investigators also found that Karamahmutoglu regularly used racial slurs, including referring to Black security guards as "gangsters," calling a Puerto Rican manager a "terrorist" and telling staff not to hire more "Puerto Rican trash" because they were "not trustworthy," documents state.

The settlement not only requires Karamahmutoglu to pay up, but also hold anti-discrimination and anti-sexual harassment training.

Read the full settlement here.