Waitress Charges Restaurant Group Fired Her Because She Was Over 40 : RETAILING

A waitress has sued Irvine-based Restaurant Enterprises Group, claiming she was handed a pink slip because management thought she was too old.

Lisa Marie Belanger, who is in her early 40s, claims age discrimination, retaliatory firing and emotional distress in her Los Angeles Superior Court suit filed June 22.

Belanger was laid off about two weeks ago. She claims that before the layoff, she was given a part-time, reduced work schedule at Otto Rothschild’s, a Restaurant Enterprises-owned dinner house in downtown Los Angeles, while “employees under the age of 40” were kept in full-time positions.

The allegations were denied last week by Restaurant Enterprises, a 690-unit restaurant group.

Belanger “was laid off in June as a result of slow business,” said Randy Hiatt, vice president of specialty restaurants for Restaurant Enterprises. “Obviously, we weren’t involved in age discrimination. Obviously, it is not a practice of the company.”

Belanger’s lawsuit, however, contends that six months after she was hired, her hours were cut without explanation starting in about August, 1986. From then until her layoff earlier this month, the lawsuit states, she was reprimanded for not conforming to the restaurant’s dress code. But at the same time, according to the lawsuit, younger employees “were not conforming to said code but were not so reprimanded or chastised.”

The lawsuit states that during the same time, restaurant supervisors “spread rumors that (Belanger) presented a poor appearance, was insubordinate, inefficient and incompetent, and had a poor attitude.”

“They hired a couple of new girls before they laid her off” in June, said Belanger’s attorney, William D. Evans of Los Angeles. “I don’t think the layoff was valid.”

Hiatt said he did not know whether it is true that employees were hired before Belanger was let go. “We’ll have to wait and see what her lawsuit says,” he said.