I had audio recordings that were on my person that night.  I had an audio recording of this 2h firing by Matt. How and why did I have this? I have to take you back to earlier in the year.

Matt's best friend Joel Mongrain had initially assisted in construction in 2019 when M4 moved locations.  Since then he has used the club facility for various vanity projections, while overall neglecting club maintenance. That role then fell to two other staff members to upkeep.  In addition to being paid, he and his friends drank for free, including regular weekly bottle service. Up until 2024 he would regularly sleep at the club in the private rental room, use the kitchen, and watch TV on the dance floor screen as if it were his home. He would leave construction equipment, food trash, and personal possessions strewn about the club. It was a frequent occurrence for staff to show up 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night and then have to frantically clean up Joel's mess (including a thick coat of sawdust on everything, like glassware and DJ equipment) before opening at 9 p.m. Sometimes the private play room (rented at $150 per night) would be un-rentable as Joel's filthy bedding and possessions filled the room. Can you imagine how embarrassing it was to see the owner of a night club frantically running out a private rental playroom with armfuls of dirty laundry and takeout containers so customers could rent it?

Matt shrugged it off and would say things like, "That's what I pay my staff for." As time went on, this situation became more toxic as Joel became more brazen. Staff would come to me with these issues, however, I did not have the power to ban or fire Joel. I told Joel none of this was acceptable, and began moving his trash, projects, or tools from places they shouldn't be onto his bed or outside in the back. Matt was upset with me whenever I managed Joel. Really, that's how I became a manager; I just kept doing all the things the club needed that Matt couldn't be bothered with. He generally liked it until it interfered with his good time.

On March 8th, 2024, Joel's latest project of twisted metal was stored in the kitchen, getting in the way of staff operations. He also left his metal cutter with millions of metal shavings in the kitchen; a gust of air from the dishwasher would send these flying onto all the glassware, causing major health issues for patrons. I moved everything to the construction trailer, as it was made clear many times that it was not appropriate or acceptable to store construction projects/tools in the kitchen, those items are always stored in the construction trailer. The next day in the afternoon, Joel texted me with a picture of everything back in the kitchen and taunted me about it. I told him if it's not removed by the time I get to work at 8:30pm, I would throw it all in the dumpster. When I arrived at work, it had not been moved. I'm a man of my word, so I threw it all out the backdoor, beside the dumpster. Matt was furious as he had to personally move Joel's belongings to their proper location. The problem was not Joel creating a serious health risk, interfering with operations or that Joel had gone through the effort to move it from its appropriate storage space BACK to the kitchen to be purposefully problematic. No, the problem was that staff hadn't just worked around it. This has been referred to as "The Day of the Dumpster," and it seems Matt was never able to let this go.

Things would escalate throughout the year; Matt had many meetings with me where he would lie and gaslight me; some days I wanted to quit because of this. I even considered working to rule and not stand up for the staff or patrons anymore. That thought was discarded in less than a day, as I don't have it in me to stand by and do nothing. Matt's wife Sara and another owner, Jerry, were brought in to manage the Justin/Joel situation. Matt had expected me to be put in my place. Instead, they only further enforced that Joel was the problem that needed to be dealt with as all other owners referred to Joel as poison. As a result, many policies were put in that stopped Joel from doing whatever he wanted. For example, Matt was told his friends could not be in staff-only areas. These rules were usually ignored by both Joel and Matt, but Matt was angry at being yelled at by everyone. Joel would later be fired and banned from the club in June where he stated he had to go because of politics but he would be back soon. Matt ghosted all further management meetings and would even avoid me and the club.  He would state that he no longer likes coming to work.

May 4th, 2024, was expected to be a very busy night. I asked Sara to remind Joel and company that they were not to be in staff-only areas as this caused issues of efficiency and, more importantly, staff safety. During a staff meeting at the beginning of the shift, Matt gave everyone specific instructions to stay out of the barback's way and keep the kitchen hallway clear. Matt promptly disregarded his own instructions shortly after opening, as he stood in the kitchen hallway talking to a crying "Wonder Woman" for approximately 20 minutes letting her know she was banned from the club for drinking too much last weekend (the real reason was her ex had alleged she was filming in the club and Matt couldn't be bothered to investigate or ask her about the allegations. Simpler just to lie and ban her) As expected, Joel's company ignored the rules too. His wife Jayne and 6 friends did not hesitate in occupying staff only areas, and monopolized the staff washroom (in part for drug use). At one point friends unknown to staff attempted to enter the kitchen, obviously high, and refused to identify themselves. My wife Tabitha was barbacking that night, and was frequently alone in the kitchen. She asked them to identify themselves, and when ignored told them to get out. They continued to force her backwards into the kitchen. She started to get louder and swore at them to leave. It turns out they were sent by Jayne to hang out in the kitchen and eat pizza purchased for and promised to the staff. The lack of respect for the club, the staff, and the patrons from Joel and company was getting to be too much, and it was killing the morale. Matt finally cleared them from the kitchen, while also yelling at Tabitha and asserting he could give away staff pizza to whoever he wanted. Later, Tabitha told Jayne to fuck herself when signaled by her on the dance floor. Matt approached me later that night, saying Tabitha's insult to Jayne was too much and he may have to "find a permanent solution." I brushed him off. I told Matt he needed to start managing Joel and all the issues would go away.

The next day, Joel told staff members that Tabitha is about to be fired but did not give details. The following Thursday, Tabitha would be told by Sara that she is suspended for 2 weeks while she investigates. Tabitha asked, I'm being suspended for telling Jayne to go fuck herself? Sara said that Jayne's friend was accusing Tabitha of physically assaulting her. However, what Jayne and her friend didn't realize was that there's a camera in the area where they claimed this happened. Tabitha knew the accusation was a lie, and easily proven false. Tabitha pointed out the camera, and asked will this girl be banned for making a false claim? Sara was caught off guard and said "we'll cross that bridge when we get there." Sure enough, the camera footage proved no assault took place. When pressed about what would happen with the person who falsely accused her, Sara pivoted and said she believes it happened and maybe happened somewhere else; an after the fact change of story once the claim was proven false. It went from what we assumed to be an investigation, based on facts, evidence and assuming innocence until proven guilty, to an investigation based on personal opinion. The very next day Joel then accused a different staff member of assaulting him. He claimed a staff member pushed him when he refused to dress down (like every patron) in the back room. This staff member came to me with the accusation against her (not knowing about Tabitha's recent investigation), and I relayed this to Sara.  There was a very clear pattern here. However Sara's email response to me was "Matt has already spoken with XXX, and he has settled things with her." 

This was all a big red flag; a brief conversation and everyone moving on. For better or worse, that was the standard in the past; however, for Tabitha, a full-on investigation had to occur. This was targeted harassment. For my wife's and my own protection, I decided it was best I started to audio record my shifts and only keep ones where something notable happened. I expected Joel to taunt me, and level another false accusation against me and my wife. I was diligent; I had a second cell phone in my breast pocket in my suit jacket so I would legally be covered under one-party consent. Because of the placement of the phone, you can barely hear anything other than me and people I'm directly having a conversation with. 95% of the recordings weren't even saved; they were typically deleted that night or the next day. Only a select few had anything of note where I had to secure the files, and I was so lucky that on the night in question I still had the recordings.

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Reddit: r/Iknowmatt