An exclusive London casino has been accused of allowing wealthy patrons to racially abuse staff with impunity and “segregated” black employees from gamblers who insisted on white dealers.
In Ms S Tesfagiorgis v Aspinalls Club, Semhar Tesfagiorgis identifies as being black British with a national ethnic origin of Eritrean. She makes various complaints that she and other colleagues were subjected to wholly inappropriate remarks of a racist and sexist nature by a customer on two separate occasions. She alleges the casino not only failed to bar offending patrons but acceded to their requests to not have black dealers at their tables.
She also alleged management would ‘segregate’ black employees out of their eyesight if directed by customers from the Far East and said requests for ‘fair-skinned dealers’ were accepted as being ‘pure superstition’.
The croupier, who worked at the den for 13 years until taking voluntary redundancy last year due to the pandemic, said she was the first black person to be hired in gaming and that black men were effectively banned from being hired in client-facing roles.
The Eritrean-born mother of two is accusing the casino of direct race and sex discrimination, indirect sex discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
The casino has accepted a black dealer was sent away from a table because of a patron’s request in an “error of judgment” but claimed it subsequently dealt with the incident “promptly and thoroughly”.
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