In 2010 this AMVETS post was the scene of an apparent human rights violation. The situation revolved around a bar manager and an assistant bar manager who came to be at odds, resulting in the firing of the assistant manager. The story, run in the Novembet 1st, 2012 issue of the Bangor Daily News, can be read below.
The post is named for Major Charles J. Loring Jr., a heroic Korean War pilot who was killed on a mission while leading a flight of F-80 Shooting Stars of the 80th Fighter-Bomber Squadron in an attack on a Chinese artillery position. For his heroism he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and made the namesake of Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine.
Loring had also flown in WWII, completing 55 missions before being shot down and taken prisoner.
Rights panel investigator finds fired bartender has cause to fight termination
By Tom Groening, BDN Staff
Posted Nov. 01, 2012, at 7:29 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — A bartender promoted to bar manager at Portland’s AMVETS Charles J. Loring Post No. 25 who was fired shortly after the promotion has reasonable grounds to argue his termination came in retaliation for pointing out an apparent theft at the post, a Maine Human Rights Commission investigator has concluded.
The rights panel meets Monday, Nov. 5, to rule on that case, as well as on a complaint about a “racially hostile housing environment” at a housing complex in Gardiner, which an investigator also concluded merited a reasonable grounds ruling.
According to investigator Robert Beauchesne’s report, Larry Nortridge of Portland had worked as a bartender and assistant bar manager at the AMVETS post since 1989. At the end of the night on Aug. 4, 2010, Nortridge gathered up cash receipts to prepare a bank deposit. In doing so, he said he noticed a paper record from the previous night that showed game of chance ticket receipts were $100 more than the deposit made by the bar manager.
“I reasonably concluded that [the bar manager] had taken the missing $100,” Nortridge told the investigator. He then informed the chairman of the post’s board of trustees of his discovery, and the board questioned the bar manager and decided to fire him.
Nortridge was offered the job of bar manager. He told the board he would accept the job as long as he could return to being assistant bar manager “if things did not work out as bar manager.”
A little over a month later, the board rehired the fired bar manager, who demanded that Nortridge be fired before he returned. The board then terminated Nortridge.
The AmVets post listed several reasons for firing Nortridge, including an altercation with tenants of the post property; giving out drink comp chips for services rendered at the post, a practice that had been banned; losing the keys to the building; and failing to balance the cash register.
But the investigator concluded that while “It is not uncommon for either party in a … case to de-emphasize or recharacterize certain events,” the AmVets post’s assertion that it terminated Nortridge solely for his on-the-job failings “is simply not found to be credible given the amount of objective evidence that suggests otherwise.”
Beauchesne concluded that Nortridge should be protected under the “whistleblower” portion of the human rights law.
From the Bangor Daily News