The NY Daily News
has the story today of an 85-year-old beer vendor's law suit against Aramark.
Mildred Block, 85, says during Shea Stadium's final season, she was replaced at her lucrative beer station in right field with a younger employee, resulting in lost wages and tips.
The fact that the "younger employee" was 75 years was one of the factors that got her age discrimination suit thrown out yesterday.
I loved those sweet seniors who worked the beer stands at Shea, some of whom made the transition to Citi Field. I believed their slow service was a benefit. Many times, those long lines kept me from buying that extra beer I didn't need, saving me hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in the long run. Good luck with your appeal, Mildred. You are welcome in Loge 13 anytime.
Full story:
Age discrimination suit
tossed after Mets beer
vendor, 85, is replaced
by 75-year-old
An 85-year-old woman who sold suds at Mets
games was crying in her beer Friday after a judge
junked her age discrimination suit against the
company that replaced her with a 75-year-old.
Mildred Block sued concession giant Aramark last year,
charging it illegally yanked her from a
lucrative beer stand during the last season at Shea
Stadium.
"Everyone was like, 'Mildred, what happened?'" said
the New Jersey woman. "I worked there so many
years, and I think I'm an excellent worker."
Block said she was marooned at a Shea booth where
tips were scarce compared to the right field stand
where she'd been for nearly two decades, pocketing
$40 in tips on good days.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Lobis sided
with the New York City Commission on Human
Rights, which determined it was "highly unlikely"
that Aramark had discriminated.
The decision pointed out the company replaced
Block - who still works for Aramark at the new Citi
Field - with Gloria Smith, 75.
Block and her son, Marty, accused the commission
of a "one-sided, abbreviated, incomplete and
improper investigation."
Marty Block, who started working at Shea in 1973,
claimed an Aramark manager told him, "Your mother
is an antique dinosaur, old cripple that we do not
want at Citi Field."
Aramark declined comment. In court papers, the
company said it received complaints about long
lines at the stand where Mildred Block worked with a
male partner 40 years her junior. Block insisted
she's still good enough for the beer-stand bigs, and
that she "never made a mistake with the change."
"I couldn't go any faster than he served the beer,"
she said.
Comments
Looks like "Budweiser DAVE" from the Loge won't be seeing me this year. So far, no "JUST SATURDAY" Plan. Hey Kingman, How are you and the Loge 13 gang making out? Any Luck???