Stew Leonard’s boss accused of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic remarks

A new federal lawsuit accuses the chief executive of the New York metropolitan area-based Stew Leonard’s grocery store chain of making racist and sexist comments about workers and customers.

Former longtime employee Robert Crosby Jr. also claims in his civil complaint that he was terminated from his job in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act after his bout with Covid-19 left him disabled.

Crosby, a 58-year-old father of four, accuses Stew Leonard’s and CEO Stew Leonard Jr. of creating a hostile work environment. The suit cites “systemic racial, sexual, religious and ageist discriminatory practices” carried out by management.

Crosby is seeking at least $500,000 in damages in the suit filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The claims in the suit contrast with the farm-folksy image of the grocery chain, which once was praised by President Ronald Reagan and business guru Tom Peters. The first Stew Leonard’s opened in 1969 as a small dairy shop in Norwalk, Connecticut. The store, which featured a small petting zoo, farm-themed food displays and animatronic singing animals, experienced explosive growth in size, popularity and publicity in the following decades.

The family-owned company now has almost $400 million in annual revenue at seven locations in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

Leonard Jr. declined to comment on the allegations in Crosby’s suit.

“Robert Crosby, Jr. worked for Stew Leonard’s almost 20 years, but unfortunately we had to part ways,” Leonard Jr. said in a statement provided to CNBC on Tuesday. “We understand he brought a lawsuit and we will review it with our attorneys, however we do not comment on pending litigation.”

Crosby, a former loss-prevention manager, “verbally opposed” the alleged slurs and practices during his employment, the suit says.

The lawsuit also alleges that Leonard Jr. joked about the discovery several years ago of human remains and tombstones from an abandoned Orthodox Jewish cemetery located on and near the grounds of a Yonkers, New York store. The suit says workers were ordered to bury the tombstones so that “no one could find them” by the store’s president — Leonard Jr.’s cousin — who later told them to throw the human remains into a dumpster.

Crosby’s suit alleges that ever since he began working at the Yonkers location in 2001, he and his co-workers were “subjected to a workplace environment that was hostile and toxic.”

The lawsuit alleges Leonard Jr. repeatedly referred to women as “b—–s,” called two white Jewish employees his “resident Jews,” regularly referred to Black employees as “thugs” and the…