According to their website, Sizzler “has served great steak, seafood, ribs, chicken and salads” for over half a century. Two years ago, however, a manager at the restaurant chain served discrimination to a lesbian in Forest Hills, Queens.
“My friends and I went in for Saturday brunch, just like everyone else in the restaurant that morning, but it turned into a nightmare,” Liza Friedlander, an out lesbian, told the New York Daily News.
The nightmare she is referring to is what she endured after the manager, Edgar Orellana, did to her when she was accused of not paying her bill. Friedlander said she was shoved hard enough in the chest to knock her over. Orellana then kicked her, while shouting a string of slurs, including a “fucking dyke”.
This enticed other patrons to join in, with one man calling her a “he-she freak” while another yelled he would show her “what a dick is.” Others threw objects at her. The scene, obviously out of control, prompted Friedlander’s two friends to immediately call 911, and she was taken to a hospital.
Orellana denied Friedlander’s interpretation of the incident. ”We told her she could continue eating from the buffet. She tried to hit me with her plate. I jumped back,” Orellana said in the New York Daily News article. “A customer grabbed her so that she would not hit me. I didn’t touch her. I went to my office and called 911.”
A New York judge disagreed and awarded Friedlander $25,000 today, ruling the restaurant violated a state law that prohibits discrimination in a public accommodation.
“On that day, I felt helpless, humiliated and frightened, but today I’m so proud that I stood up and did something about it,” Friendlander said on the Lamba Legal website, who represented her during the lawsuit. ”No one should have to go through a nightmare like that.”
Natalie Chin, the Lamba Legal attorney who represented Friedlander sees this as “a strong message: Violent and discriminatory behavior motivated by bias against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals or transgender people will not be tolerated.”
