Gina McColl, The Age
Drink spiking, sleazy remarks, assaults. This week's investigation into endemic sexual harassment in the hospitality industry does not come as a shock to Rose Gaumann, the manager of Fitzroy's Kent Street Bar. She has plenty of her own horror stories.
"Having knock-off drinks with other bartenders in the area, I was hearing increasingly awful stories about what was happening in people's bars," Gaumann says. One local bar had five sexual assaults of customers and staff in a single evening. A manager of another was attacked by a group of customers. One bartender's drink was spiked by a patron when he bought her a shot.