The dry-humping manager and other restaurant tales

Yesterday, our sister paper in St. Louis, the Riverfront Times, ran a post on its Daily RFT blog about an Alton restaurant manager who paid a big price — a $75,000 settlement — for sexually harassing a teenage hostess (including, she alleged, dry humping her from behind at the hostess stand).

The manager was — surprise! — a member of the family that owned the restaurant, one Michael Ventimiglia. His brother, Paul, the restaurant’s general manager, reportedly ignored the complaints of the 18-year-old high school student and told her, according to the story, that “nothing could be done.”

Anyone who has been in the restaurant business for any length of time

knows that it’s not unusual for restaurant managers — family members or

not — to take advantage of their position to pull off all kinds of

morally questionable activities. I’ve seen it happen.