Tedeschi's fires clerk accused of anti-gay harassment

Tedeschi Food Shops fired a clerk from the convenience store chain's Jamaica Plain location in response to a complaint from a lesbian couple that the clerk harassed them and refused to serve them. John Connell, a regional manager for Tedeschi's, said the company verified the couple's claim by examining video footage of the exchange between the clerk and the couple, and they promptly terminated the clerk.

"As a company I can't stress enough that any kind of prejudice against any kind of group won't be tolerated," said Connell.

The incident, originally reported by the Jamaica Plain Gazette, took place just after midnight Aug. 21. Sandra Rodrigues and her girlfriend, Stephanie Perez, were wandering down Centre Street after an evening at J.P. Licks when they stopped into Tedeschi's so Perez could buy a juice drink. Rodrigues told Bay Windows that as they stepped into the checkout line she wrapped her arms around Perez's waist and they both swayed to the music playing on the store's sound system. When the clerk noticed them Rodrigues said he began shouting at them from behind the counter.

"He points to us. He says, 'You two, get out of the store. You're acting as if you're in a pornography film. I'm not going to service you,'" said Rodrigues.

She said they refused to step out of line.

"I asked him, what did we do? He said we were acting inappropriately," said Rodrigues.

She said the clerk continued serving customers, and while they were standing in line a heterosexual couple got in line behind them. The couple were also being physically affectionate, holding hands and resting their heads against each other. Rodrigues said the clerk made no effort to break up that couple or eject them from the store, and she said she jokingly told the couple, "You're not allowed to do that."

Peter Papodopoulos, another customer waiting in line at the time, confirmed in an interview with the Gazette that there was a heterosexual couple in line being affectionate but that the clerk took no action against them. Bay Windows was unable to reach Papodopoulos before deadline.

When Rodrigues and Perez reached the counter, the clerk once again demanded they leave the store, according to Rodrigues's account of the incident.

"I put the juice on the counter and he grabbed it and threw it off to the side and said, 'Get out of the store. We're not going to service you.' ... I continued hugging her and said, 'There's nothing wrong with this,'" said Rodrigues.

She said the clerk told her repeatedly that he had their inappropriate behavior captured on film. Ultimately that video footage proved the clerk's own undoing, once Tedeschi's corporate office began investigating the incident.

Rodrigues said the straight couple behind them offered to buy the juice for them, but the clerk refused to allow them to do so. She and Perez left the store empty-handed, and she said some of the customers approached them and said they did not believe they deserved to be ejected from the store. Papodopoulos gave the couple his phone number and urged them to contact him if they needed witnesses to the incident.

The couple were not content to let the incident go unaddressed. They contacted Tedeschi's corporate office and explained their complaint, and they wrote letters about the incident to the Boston Globe and the Gazette. They also contacted the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) to talk about legal options for responding to the harassment by the clerk. After consulting with GLAD, the couple contacted the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) and requested a form to complain about anti-gay discrimination by Tedeschi's.

Tedeschi's later contacted the couple and said that after an investigation they had fired the clerk. Initially the company declined to confirm that the clerk had been fired to the Gazette, citing employee confidentiality protections, but Connell reversed course in his interview with Bay Windows, saying that the company felt it was important to make it clear publicly that they had taken swift action to respond to the incident.

Rodrigues at first said she was satisfied with Tedeschi's response, but in the past few days she said she has reconsidered and is contemplating filing her MCAD complaint. She said in discussions with Tedeschi's management she was told the company does not believe the harassment was motivated by anti-gay bias. She said they "made it seem like it wasn't a gay issue, but I think it was."

Bruce Bell, coordinator for GLAD's legal information hotline, said that Tedeschi's decision to fire the clerk in question may hurt Rodrigues's chances of prevailing if she files an MCAD complaint. He said MCAD will try to determine if there is probable cause to go forward with the complaint, and one of the factors the commission will examine is whether Tedeschi's offered an acceptable remedy to the alleged discrimination.

"The question would be whether what the store did in terms of a remedy was sufficient or whether they think the store should have done further things," said Bell.

Connell confirmed that the company does not believe the clerk's actions were homophobic.

"The employee said he would do the same for any customer, whether it was a gay relationship or any customer acting like [Rodrigues and Perez] were," said Connell, despite claims by the couple and at least one witness that the clerk did not take similar action against the straight couple in the store.

Connell said while he does not believe the incident was anti-gay harassment, it was clearly inappropriate.

"He has no right making any kind of decision based on what any customer is doing," said Connell.

He said for the past several years the company has done diversity training for its employees, and one of the components of that training has been focusing on issues of sexual orientation. Rodrigues said in conversations with Tedeschi management she was told the company has training around sexual harassment but not sexual orientation diversity.

"And even though it seems like this is an isolated case I think any company could benefit from having a training on sexual orientation, diversity, things like that," said Rodrigues.

This is the second major case of anti-gay discrimination at a public venue to make headlines in the past year. Last March a Boston man named Martin Keenan filed suit in Suffolk Superior Court alleging that Jeremiah Foley, one of the owners of J. J. Foley's pub in the leather district assaulted him and threw him out of the pub for kissing another man in 2005. Foley told the Boston Globe at the time that he did not remember the incident but that he would not allow two men to kiss in his bar.

Lee Swislow, executive director of GLAD, said that despite the advances made in Massachusetts around marriage, parental rights and other areas, the state's anti-discrimination law forms the bedrock for LGBT legal protections. The state prohibits discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation but not gender identity or expression.

"Nondiscrimination laws are the fundamental building block for gay and lesbian rights, and you can see how important they are. Massachusetts passed ours in 1989, and we have this incident that happened in 2007, and it's sobering to realize how many people are not covered by nondiscrimination laws and where discrimination continues to be legal," said Swislow. "It's almost impossible to move forward to achieve other rights for LGBT people until you have a clear statement in your state, by your legislature, that discriminating against gay people is wrong. It's much more difficult to ask for adoption, marriage equality or any other rights."

Swislow said in cases like the Tedeschi's incident non-discrimination laws can have an impact on how disputes are resolved even when neither party takes legal action.

"It's both the legal but also the moral position that discrimination is wrong, and I think having that standard makes clear that companies have an obligation to follow the law," said Swislo