Managers at high​-​end Barclays Center ​arena ​restaurants viciously taunted disabled employees and​ purposely kept them hidden from the public, according to a disturbing Brooklyn federal lawsuit.
A group of five arena staffers are suing the facility claiming that they were subjected to horrific abuse based on either ​their race or disability, the suit states.
Managers with Levy Restaurants, the firm that handles food concessions at the Brooklyn arena, pelted black workers with racial slurs and demeaned employees with physical deformities, the suit alleges.
“Plaintiffs have suffered from systemic maltreatment and egregious abuse on the basis of race and/or disability,” the suit states.
Managers allegedly called a blind employee “Cyclops,” ridiculed a worker with a nose deformity and even mimicked the shaky hand of a man with cerebral palsy, the suit alleges.
The disabled plaintiffs accuse company brass of purposefully removing them from the premium venues at Barclays, including the 40/40 Club and the Calvin Klein Kitchen, “so they remain out of sight of customers,” the suit states.
Managers sought to keep the black and disabled employees from advancing within the company and gave them false write-ups and trumped-up tests designed to have them fail.
In addition to the individual defendants, the suit names Barclays and Levy for failing to address the ugly work environment, according to the suit.
“Defendants have refused to rectify the illegal discriminatory behavior of the individual defendants [or] the hostile work environment at Levy Premium,” the suit states.
​Levy Restaurants did not immediately respond to a request for comment.​