Male manicurist at Wynn Las Vegas sues over gender bias

A former male manicurist at Wynn Las Vegas has filed a lawsuit against the Strip resort alleging gender discrimination, a court document shows.

The complaint was filed Monday in District Court in Las Vegas, about nine months after manicurist Vincent Fried was fired. The case focuses on the alleged violations of Fried’s Title VII rights, accusing Wynn Las Vegas of gender discrimination, a hostile work environment and retaliation.

The complaint states that salon managers and the lead manicurist favored female employees over the male employees. The discrimination included “a disparity in customer assignments … and otherwise being treated unfairly, including receiving verbal warnings for things which the female manicurists did not receive verbal warnings for,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit alleges that his July 4 termination was an act of retaliation following an incident on June 20 involving a group of minors who had been served alcohol by four female manicurists inside the salon.

According to the complaint, Fried took his client’s drink away after verifying that she was under 21. But the lawsuit alleges that Fried’s client was later served another alcoholic drink without his knowledge, and he was suspended pending investigation and eventually terminated.

The four female manicurists who had served the drinks were neither suspended nor terminated, according to the lawsuit.

The eight-page complaint also alleges that, on a separate occasion, a female manager told Fried that he “might want to do something with cooking for work” because he was “in a female job-related environment.”

A representative of Wynn Las Vegas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.