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7-Up vs. Coke Part 2

Continued from page 2

The Schmitz brothers, along with Frank's then-partner Mike Johnson, had aimed to spin BARcelona into a small-scale regional chain, but in early 2004, for a variety of reasons, the men abandoned the plan. When Schmitz spoke of opening his own eatery, Crater and Gladney proposed the perfect location.

"There was nothing but vagrancy down here then," Schmitz recalls. "No retail, and for restaurants just Pablo [Weiss, owner of Kitchen K], who was so generous and who said, 'This place is going to be something!'"

Schmitz recalls celebrating an amusing Fourth of July that year at the Kimmswick estate of Gladney's Aunt Lucianna, with Gladney and his cousin, John Ross — well known around town as a gun enthusiast and firearms instructor — entertaining friends by shooting into the Mississippi River. Two weeks later a lease for the Hadley-Dean's ground floor was drawn up. Plans were made for Crater's and Gladney's company — now called Downtown North Development Group — to become a minority owner in the restaurant, to be dubbed Mosaic.

Unlike Joe Taylor, Schmitz doesn't recall any initial misgivings about Gladney. "Although he was exuberant," the chef says, "he was not out of whack."

In early 2007 Claus Schmitz sat down for a glowing Q&A with St. Louis Magazine in which he was asked what advice he'd give to would-be restaurateurs. "If you're not business-savvy, find a partner who is," Schmitz replied. "That being said, choose your partners wisely."

By then Schmitz must have been kicking himself for the choice he'd made.

When Mosaic opened in December 2004, the local food press showered praise upon Schmitz's tapas and the gorgeous interior design by Baseline Workshop. But two former bartenders have unpleasant memories that go all the way back to the eatery's earliest days.

Aimée Boss, then 28, of Belleville, and Morgan Hagedon, then 25, of St. Louis, claim that from the moment Mosaic opened, Andrew Gladney sexually harassed them.

Boss quit on January 19, 2005; Hagedon was gone by the end of February. On July 14 of that year, the two went to the Missouri Commission on Human Rights and filed charges of discrimination, alleging that Gladney's offensive behavior had forced them out.

"From the beginning there was trouble with Mr. Gladney," Boss states in her harassment claim. "He cursed, using the word 'fuck' over and over again and shouted at me and other bartenders. He screamed 'Don't point your fucking finger at me!' and 'Get your fucking ass over here and make me a drink!'"

According to Boss' statement, Gladney visited the bar nearly every night and came on to her from day one. She claims that an encounter on January 19, 2005, when Gladney had two friends in tow, precipitated her resignation:

"He pulled me over and whispered to me that I should make sure that I do 'whatever and anything it takes to please' his guests and him. Later that night he invited me to 'party' after work with him and his friends. He used the term 'party' to refer to using drugs and sexual conduct. He also asked me to drink some shots so that I would 'loosen up' because according to him 'you always act like you are on your period.' He told me to come up to his office and do cocaine with him. He said cocaine 'will relax you while you suck my cock.' Then he said he would do the coke while I gave him oral sex. He went on and on about how he wanted to do coke in parts of my body and on top of my breasts.... He told me repeatedly that he wanted me to 'suck his dick' while he does coke. Then he suggested that I call my fiancé so that Mr. Gladney could perform oral and anal sex on my fiancé. He went on like this and with even more explicit detail for quite some time."

Boss states that the general manager, Gregg Doyle, stood behind the bar "the whole time Mr. Gladney made these comments," and that after an hour, she escaped to the building's loading dock and burst into tears. When Doyle and Schmitz found her outside, she asserts, the former "excused Mr. Gladney's behavior by saying, 'He's on too much blow.'" She states that Schmitz apologized for Gladney's actions and Doyle tried to talk her out of quitting.

In interviews with Riverfront Times, Doyle and Schmitz tell a different version of the encounter. They say Boss was shaking so hard she couldn't articulate the problem, other than to suggest that Gladney had been rude. Schmitz says he summoned Gladney outside and the two got into a shouting match. The chef says Gladney denied acting inappropriately and suggested that Boss wanted to sleep with him. Whereupon, Schmitz says, he banned Gladney from the premises.

Adds Doyle: "I was unaware of drug use. If I'd observed anything like that, he would've been evicted even sooner."

Boss left work that night and never returned. Doyle says he tried unsuccessfully to call her for several weeks afterward in an attempt to get the full story.

In her discrimination charge, Morgan Hagedon echoes many of Boss' allegations. Hagedon notes that Gladney "often had a large crowd with him" and "would run up nightly tabs of $200 to $300." She states that if he found a female employee unattractive, "he would refer to her with derogatory terms, such as 'fat cow.'" The attractive employees, on the other hand, were invited to "party" with him.

Hagedon claims that Gladney proposed sexual threesomes and touched female employees inappropriately. She states that he drew pictures on napkins of the outfits he thought she should wear and wanted to take her shopping for "sexy clothes."

Hagedon also states that she related Gladney's "offensive" behavior to Schmitz and Doyle but that they "did not do anything to actually stop or change the situation."

The women both claim they were forced to quit because Gladney made them uncomfortable, and because they believed that Schmitz and Doyle would permit him to do whatever he wanted, rather than risk alienating a part-owner and high-paying customer.

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