Capitaine Grec Owners Accused of Harassment

For at least three Bishop’s students, Capitaine Grec is much more than the quintessential wrap-up to a drunken night. Serious accusations are being levelled against the establishment by several female servers who have worked there over the past two years.

The women say that while working at Grec, they were victims of verbal and physical harassment from the owners and non-waitress staff, and that they had to work in an overall unprofessional environment.

Bishop’s student Sarah-Michelle Hollands worked at Grec for a month and said she was forced to quit because of the inappropriate behaviour of management. After only a few shifts, Hollands says, she was asked to “go out back” with one of the owners.

Comments like these became a regular occurrence, and Hollands said that when she stood up for herself, the owners would threaten her, saying, “You won’t be working here much longer.”

Another Bishop’s student, Anna Brown*, had similar experiences during the five months that she worked at Capitaine Grec.

“I would go to the bathroom, and they would ask if they could come with me,” she said.

Both girls say that most of the inappropriate behaviour appeared to be the result of excessive drinking done by the owners: “They would be drinking forties out back and then go next door and take shots at Mulligans.”

One night while Brown was cleaning the floor, one of the owners was belligerent and yelling. “I just kept cleaning the floor. I just wanted to get out of there, and then he started yelling for me to look at him when he was talking to me,” she said.

For Brown, that was the breaking point.

In other instances, the owners would drink, then make mistakes with orders. If it meant a loss of money for the restaurant, the owners would try and take it out of the waitresses’ pay, saying that it was their fault.

Also, even after excessive drinking, the owners would continue to drive to drop off deliveries.

First year student Sam Bates* says that during her first shifts, physical boundaries were crossed: “The owners would walk by and pinch my sides or hug me.” During shifts, the owners offered Bates shots of alcohol.

Hollands says that the owners of Capitaine Grec treat women like they are “dispensable.”

“It’s not like we are doing a job that guys couldn’t do,” says Brown. “It really felt like a power thing: they knew that they could control girls easier than guys, and that the girls wouldn’t try to fight back. As soon as a girl did stand up for herself, they were threatened with being fired.”

Both Hollands and Brown say they wanted to leave Grec sooner, but there were no other jobs available in Lennoxville. “You know that this is a bad place to work, but when you’re strapped for a job, you feel like you can’t leave.”

Waitresses at Capitaine Grec make minimum wage plus tip.

When asked about these allegations, the owners of Grec initially responded with “This is stupid and all bullshit. This is really a professional establishment!”

In a second interview, one of them said, “There’s nothing there. It’s a made-up story.

“We don’t behave like that; we always respect our employees.”

A current employee of Capitaine Grec, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that one of the owners drinks on the job, but said that he remains “very functional” while doing so. She also confirmed that the owners do makes jokes in poor taste, but that she has always taken them as jokes.

She added that she considers the owners to be “very good people”, who are “more respectful [toward employees] than most customers are.”

Dr. Cheryl Gosselin, a women’s studies professor at Bishop’s, says that anyone who experiences harassment in the workplace “should go straight to the Normes de Travail and lodge a complaint. If there is more than one person who files a complaint then all the better. Quebec has a very powerful law against any kind of harassment in the workplace.”

Hollands said she hopes that when students hear about what is happening at Capitaine Grec, they will take a stand and demand a more professional establishment.

*Due to the sensitive nature of these allegations, some of the women interviewed have asked to remain anonymous. Their names have been changed in order to protect their identities.