Former Gorge Employee Suing After Claims She Was Fired For Speaking Spanish On The Job

A longtime manager at the Gorge Amphitheater near George has filed a lawsuit after she claims to have been fired for speaking Spanish while on the job.

Alicia Sanchez filed the suit against the Gorge's parent company, Live Nation, on Oct. 29 in federal court in Washington state.

Sanchez claims the Beverly Hills-based company is guilty of discrimination based on age, gender, national origin, and race, as well as retaliation - after she made reports of sexual harassment that went unresolved.

According to an article published by Human Resources Director magazine, Sanchez had been employed by Live Nation for 15 years and worked her way up to the position of Operations Manager during that time. She claims the company repeatedly provided no on-site human resources management for up to 350 employees during its peak season, and that a minimum of 70% of those employed by Live Nation at the Gorge communicated exclusively in Spanish and were not at all versed, let alone fluent, in English.

Sanchez's suit goes on to allege that Live Nation failed to provide any Spanish-language documents, notices, or other official written or oral communications regarding company policies or workers rights, so she took it upon herself to assist her co-workers by translating all such information which was provided only in English.

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This action, which her suit claims had become commonplace over the years, became the primary basis for Sanchez's termination in May, 2024. With the company also citing her creation of a "perceived mean girls clique" and lacking "eye contact" as further reasons for discontinuing her employment.

Sanchez says the troubles attached to these allegations began in the spring of 2023, when a female college student was hired to work at the venue who made complaints that she had been disrespectful and discriminatory towards other employees, something Sanchez denies.

In the midst of her issues with the new hire, Sanchez says she was also embattled with Live Nation's management team over reports of sexual harassment that she'd made on behalf of several co-workers.

During that same spring at the Gorge, Sanchez says three young women told her that a 60-year-old ticketing director - who was her subordinate, had repeatedly made unwelcomed invitations to have them accompany him in his hot tub at the amphitheater and at his private residence.

Sanchez claims she pushed the harassment allegations all the way to Live Nation's corporate Vice President of Human Resources, Melissa Smith, who failed take the appropriate steps to follow up on the complaints and eventually made the decision to retain the employee in question.

The lawsuit also alleges that several members of Live Nation's management staff at the Gorge violated the company's policies regarding on-the-job alcohol consumption while Sanchez was present, and that eight months after she reported these violations to her superiors, she was terminated.

Sanchez, who is in her 40s and of Mexican descent, says the company supplanted her by hiring three separate people, two of whom are much younger and one who is a man, and that Live Nation also revised her termination notice to falsely indicate that she'd voluntarily resigned.

The company also sent Sanchez a cease-and-desist letter following her firing, which warned of the potential for her arrest should she set foot on the company's property at the Gorge - something which Live Nation had reportedly never done in its history with previous employees.

Sanchez says that move and the company's communications with the Grant County Sheriff's Office to specifically prevent her from returning to the Gorge - even as a patron, also harmed her reputation as a part-time educator in the community.

In the wake of her termination, roughly 100 of her former colleagues issued a written petition to Live Nation's corporate president objecting to the firing and negative treatment of the woman they'd come to know as their "Gorge Mother."

Sanchez is seeking monetary damages and has requested her case be heard by a jury of her peers in a federal courtroom.

Live Nation has yet to respond to any of the allegations made in Sanchez's suit.