Gramercy Park Hotel’s Rose Bar, Jade Bar Require Only Waitresses, Not Men, to Share Tips, Lawsuit Alleges

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

The entities and individuals that run the Gramercy Park Hotel’s Rose Bar and Jade Bar find themselves as defendants in a proposed class action filed by a former cocktail waitress who alleges the clubs’ management has different rules in place when it comes to tipped male and female employees.

According to the lawsuit, Rose Bar and Jade Bar’s bartenders, roles reportedly filled only by men, are not required to share tips with barbacks. The plaintiff claims that the defendants—RFR Holding, LLC, GPH Partners LLC, GPH Management LLC, GP Services LLC and five individuals with operational control of the bars—require only women working as waitresses to distribute their tips as part of a tip pool. These tips, the lawsuit says, are distributed to male bartenders, who the plaintiff claims are not required to share tips with any other person.

“The women were required to distribute tips on the stated ground that ‘You girls make too much money’ or other similar reasons,” the complaint reads.

Per the complaint, a waitress working the first shift at the clubs is required by the defendants to share 20 percent and seven percent of her tips with the Jade Bar bartender and back-of-house kitchen workers, respectively. Waitresses who work Shift 2 or 3, and those working a swing-shift, the case continues, must distribute 20 percent of their tips to Rose Bar bartenders and kick in 15 to 20 percent to back-of-house workers.

“The employer-mandated tip sharing scheme imposed on Plaintiff and other waitresses is not customary,” the case states. “The employer-mandated tip sharing imposed on Plaintiff was not reasonable.”