HOUSTON, TX — The wonderful thing about strip clubs is that if a waitress gets a little long in the tooth, you just fire her ass and hire someone younger who will, ideally, work for less money, right? Not according to a recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decision.When Houston’s Cover Girls decided to put 56-year-old waitress Mary Bassi out to pasture, she didn’t graciously accept her golden cowbell and leave quietly. She took her grievance to the EEOC – and earned their protection.
According to the lawsuit, which the EEOC has filed on her behalf, Bassi regularly contended with rude comments about her age, including being called “old” by managers and enduring jokes about menopause and appearing to show signs of Alzheimer’s.
When contacted by the Houston Chronicle, Lauren Serper, an employment attorney for Cover Girls’ parent company, AHD Houston, insisted that the company has a strict anti-discrimination policy with zero tolerance for violations.
Bassi, who has chosen to remain quiet on the particulars of her case, was hired by AHD Houston in 1993, after working at Covergirls, another strip club.
“She made a lot of money, her customers liked her and she sold a lot of liquor,” EEOC lawyer Connie Wilhite explained to the press, indicating that Bassi’s income was in the high five or low six figures until she was fired in 2006.
Wilhite contends that the club began to hire younger women earlier in the year and gave them cherry shifts previously worked by Bassi.
AHD Houston owns five clubs including Centerfolds, Treasures, Gold Cup, Trophy Club and Spendor. Cover Girls is no longer an AHD and affiliated enterprises property as it burned down in 2007 and has not been rebuilt.
Although strip clubs are veritable shrines to youth, Wilhite reminds employers that “It doesn’t matter what industry you work in. You are still protected by anti-discrimination laws.”
