Ex-MAGA-linked Auckland Hoppers bar staff talks about ‘intense and disturbing’ culture

Originally Posted by The Spinoff

An Auckland bar attracted attention last month for hosting a US election party attended by Trump supporters in MAGA hats. Three former employees have come forward to say the incident is the least of their problems.

Former staff at Auckland’s popular Hoppers bar have filed complaints about the working environment they found there, including an incident that led to the resignation of a staff member after complaints of serious sexual harassment by customers.

Once the popular Golden Dawn live music venue, just off Auckland’s Ponsonby Road, Hoppers Garden Bar was bought and restored by sisters Bronwyn and Jessica Payne in 2018. The New Zealand Business Bureau lists the sisters as equal shareholders in the Thank You Ltd trade as Hoppers. The couple also run Elmo’s Pizzeria on Ponsonby Rd.

After the US election, three former bar employees reached out to The Spinoff to share their stories. All three say the election night party, which prompted social media users to call for a boycott of the bar, was the least of the business’s problems.

Alex *, who was employed by Hoppers for a year, said the bar has high staff turnover due to a “customer is always right” attitude that can have a negative impact on staff. “Hoppers was getting a reputation as a bar where you could get away with it.”

Alex described the culture there as “annoying and intense.”

A second former employee, Reese, said they felt the owners viewed their staff as “replaceable.” “I don’t think they asked my name, to be honest. I honestly don’t think they knew my name.”

Another former employee, Lee, said that staff felt they were seen as less important than customers. “[The owners] They are very customer oriented, they care about making money and I think that sometimes it is to the detriment of their staff, who should feel safe. They get a lot of complaints about the bad mood of the staff and things like that, and I think that’s a general reflection of how they are treated. “

However, all three said it was a particular incident that forced them to speak up. Reese, Lee and Alex said a staff member was sexually harassed by multiple patrons in one night – “a whole table of men” – including being grabbed by the face and touched below the waist.

Reese said the staff member reported it to management and security staff on the night in question, and the operations manager or owners overruled the decision to kick the offending customers out, allowing them to stay at the bar.

“They handled it incredibly poorly and that person quit because they didn’t feel safe,” Lee said.

When contacted by The Spinoff, Jessica and Bronwyn Payne said they were “aware of an incident in which a staff member was sexually harassed by a customer.” However, they did not confirm whether the customer or customers in question were allowed to stay in the bar the night after the staff member reported the harassment.

“The safety and comfort of our employees is the most important thing to us. As women in a male-dominated industry, once we learned of the incident, we immediately sympathized with the employee and took action,” they said in an email statement. .

They summarized the actions taken after the incident, saying that their operations manager discussed the matter with the employee. The Paynes then met with the operations manager to discuss next steps and, after soliciting management input, “worked to update protocols and implement additional measures for the safety and well-being of our employees and customers.”

Later, an all-staff meeting was called, attended by “about 15 people,” according to Reese, in which a color-coding system was introduced to address any future incidents of bullying. But Reese said the initial incident, and his handling at the time, was never addressed. Lee and Reese told The Spinoff that when the staff member in question raised it, they called her “childish” for bringing it up again.

“And then they hinted that female staff can sometimes go overboard to gossip and have little work dramas,” Lee said.

The Paynes reject the suggestion that they called the staff member childish “in connection with the bullying report.”

“We take this issue very seriously and prioritize the implementation of a new protocol and training to help combat future issues of inappropriate customer behavior. Additionally, with respect to the employee, we confirm that a continuing employment position was offered at our alternate location. to help address the concerns raised and make the employee feel more comfortable. The employee wrote to us to say that they appreciated the time and effort we put into trying to resolve the issue, but generally chose to pursue other job postings. “

Reese says another incident involved a customer who was asked to leave by a manager due to calling a janitor the n-word on a previous occasion. Reese says that when the customer and his group clashed, one of the bar’s owners “blurred” the situation by allowing the group to stay, and even brought them a bottle of champagne which he later shared with the table.

“I was like, ‘Oh you don’t really care,'” Reese said. “Someone can come in and call a doorman with n-word and get a bottle of champagne. A woman is grabbed by a man, don’t worry, he’s a rich white guy, he stays.”

The Paynes also reject this version, saying, “The customer who made the racist comment came back at a later date. They were asked to leave immediately and they did so willingly.”

In the run-up to election night in the U.S., word spread among staff that Jessica and Bronwyn Payne’s partners were strong supporters of Donald Trump, Lee said, and that the evening’s party The election would encourage people to show their support for the US president, who has made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and bragged about sexually assaulting women.

“The reason I knew they would take their MAGA caps with them is because they invited me to join and they offered me a hat. And they also offered one to a friend of mine,” Lee said. However, despite some claims on social media, Lee did not believe the party was exclusively for Trump supporters.

The night of the party, a group of friends found out that he was going to be served by people in MAGA hats and decided to go into the bar to see for themselves. A young black woman from Auckland, Coco Jouavel, captured altercations on video between herself and her friends, and the staff and customers, some of whom were wearing the hats, and posted them on Instagram. The videos show the group being kicked out of the bar by staff.

Jouavel told The Spinoff: “I was saddened for all my friends and family in America. To me, that hat means racism, it means horror, it means violence.”

Hoppers issued a statement the next day stating that the party’s entourage included Democratic supporters and only a “small minority of Americans who attended were Republican supporters.” They added: “Hoppers does not have a political agenda.”

Alex said that that night in early November he had her about to resign, a decision confirmed by discovering that Bronwyn Payne was promoting dubious Covid-19 content on her personal social media, including posts by conspiracy theorist and aspiring politician Billy. Te Kahika from Advance NZ. The sisters also appeared in an Instagram post wearing MAGA caps.

This was the last straw, Alex said. “It didn’t feel very welcoming.”

* Names have been changed