A bartender at Club Remix on Park Pl. is suing owner Panagiotis Kotsonis for allegedly forcing her to work shifts during disturbing sex parties he hosts at the club.
BY COLIN MIXSON
She’s no “working girl,” but she says she was forced to work with them.
A bartender at a Financial District watering hole is hauling her boss into court for requiring her to work shifts during weekly sex parties — where she was subjected to the lurid spectacle of naked patrons cavorting with ladies of the night — or else lose her job of nearly 14 years.
The plaintiff’s lawyer said the owner of Club Remix on Park Pl. is free to host such salacious sexcapades at his private establishment, but forcing his employees to staff them is a clear case of sexual harassment.
“It’s probably better to not have this type of parties in a work place, but certainly if you’re going to subject an employee to something like that, you would think the way to handle that is to advise them as such, and honor any request to not work at such an event,” said Thomas Ricotta, the attorney representing bartender Jamilya Bliss.
Bliss was hired as a bartender at Club Remix between Church St. and Broadway — about a block away from City Hall — by owner Panagiotis Kotsonis in 2002, eventually rising to the position of head bartender before things started getting weird, according to court documents.
About four years ago, Kotsonis scheduled Bliss to work a private party he was hosting at the club, but it wasn’t until she got there and saw guests getting nude and nasty that she realized it was a very special kind of party, according to her attorney.
When Bliss decided she couldn’t take it any more and told the boss man that the sex parties weren’t what she’d signed up for, Kotsonis made it clear that she could either mix drinks for his horn-dog guests, or hit the road, Ricotta said.
“He basically told her you have no choice,” the lawyer said. “Your employment is conditional upon you working these parties on these dates.”
The bartender endured the shame of serving pervs for the better part of four years, before ultimately deciding to sue, and during that time, Bliss says she and her colleagues were subjected to various other forms of harassment by Kotsonis.
Bliss, a gay woman, says Kotsonis would routinely refer to homosexuals as “f——” in her presence, despite knowing her sexual orientation. And the bar owner is accused of various racist policies, including avoiding booking parties for black patrons, and firing black employees “on a whim,” while shouting racial slurs, including “n—–,” court documents show.
This isn’t the club’s first brush with controversy. Kotsonis appeared before Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee in 2013 to request the board’s endorsement for his cabaret license application — which is necessary for dance and strip clubs — following a New York Post report earlier that year on parties hosted at the club where patrons were offered $20 lap dances.
The committee ultimately declined to give Kotsonis its blessing, citing numerous concerns from neighbors, including one woman’s claims that her teenage daughters were uncomfortable walking past the club at night due to its rowdy clientele.
“For me here tonight, the testimony that the teenage girls are having difficulty going home, testimony of dishonesty toward getting around the cabaret license with invitations… I think off the bat we had a misrepresentation of the role of the two men outside, I don’t think someone should be given the privilege of a cabaret license,” board member Megan McHugh said at the time.
Kotsonis could not be reached for comment.
