Woman Claims High-Priced Strip Club Fired Her Because She’s White

Or, more precisely, because she’s not black.

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You may have never heard of Vanity Grand, a strip club in Southwest Philadelphia, but it’s no hole in the wall. The high-priced bottle-service venue at 61st and Passyunk has recently presented events hosted by the likes of hip-hop stars Rick Ross, Future, and 50 Cent, and Meek Mill is scheduled to appear there this weekend. Vanity Grand is the kind of place where Floyd Mayweather goes to literally throw lots of money around. Well, the club now finds itself the subject of a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a woman who used to work there.

Catherine Waterfield, 32, of Sewell, New Jersey, has filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia’s federal court alleging that she was fired by Vanity Grand because she is white. Or, more precisely, because she’s not black.

According to her suit, Waterfield began working as a bartender at Vanity Grand in December 2014, two months after the club opened. She maintains that she was the only non-African-American bartender there and that the club catered primarily to a black clientele.

Waterfield’s complaint says that Vanity Grand hired consultants to advise on business matters and that club owner Frank Antico, Jr., who also owns popular South Philly strip club Cheerleaders, texted her and told her that while she hadn’t done anything wrong, the consultants wanted him to hire black bartenders. She alleges that although she had no “prior issues or warnings,” she was then fired by a member of the club’s staff at the end of February 2015.

The lawsuit accuses Vanity Grand of racial discrimination and seeks unspecified damages.

Interestingly, Waterfield’s mother, Kathleen Waterfield, sued Washington Township in 2013, claiming that she was prevented from opportunities to earn overtime and advance in her job as a maintenance worker in the public works department because the department favored her supervisor’s son. She accused the township of sexism and nepotism, and a jury decided the case in her favor. The township also had to cover her more than $124,000 in legal fees.

Catherine Waterfield’s attorney and representatives of Vanity Grand did not respond to requests for comment.

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