It seems that Lucio Zanon, managing partner of the Monaco Restaurant Group, who is in charge of the reinvented 251 The Club and the new Italian eatery Caffe Milano, both of which are slated to open on the island in the next few weeks, has a bit of a skeleton in his closet with regard to fair-hiring practices.
In 1999, he was quoted in a lawsuit filed by none other than former New York Governor and current CNN host Eliot Spitzer, who was then the state’s Attorney General, against the Cipriani clan, accusing the well-known family of restaurant owners of sexual discrimination in hiring practices.
According to accounts published in The New York Times and the New York Daily News at the time, Zanon, who was the manager of Harry Cipriani restaurants on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and SoHo, was caught on tape twice telling a female investigator, posing as a job seeker at Cipriani’s downtown location, that women need not apply for jobs there.
Zanon’s incriminating statements provided the basis of the lawsuit, which was settled after almost a year.
The Ciprianis agreed to end their “no women” policy in the hiring of staff at their restaurants and catering facilities.
Zanon did not lose his job with Cipriani.
He left the company several years later to run Casa Tua in Miami Beach and just recently joined the Monaco Restaurant Group.
“That’s all in the past,” said Zanon, when contacted about the incident.
“Though, I learned a valuable lesson during that experience,” he said, maintaining that he was only following the policy of the Cipriani company at the time.
“We will have plenty of women at both the club and restaurant at every level, from servers to bartenders to bussers,” said Zanon. “All is very equal.”