Underage Drinker Pays Protesters To Bully Lux UES Hotel: Worker, Suit

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Chants were even captured in a video of celebrity musician Drake leaving the hotel on July 17, when one protester can be heard chanting, “The Mark helped Epstein.”

(The Mark does appear among many 5-star Manhattan venues listed in Jeffery Epstein’s “little black book,” but there is no other known connection between the hotel and the infamous pedophile.)

An episode of pop-culture podcast “The Toast” also recounted the protests, adding that the host’s boyfriend witnessed about six people demonstrating.

“They were saying the most random things,” Claudia Oshry says. “‘The Mark has mice, The denies the Holocaust, the Mark supports Epstein.’ Ben was like, ‘How are these three things related?'”

According to the lawsuit — which seeks a restraining order and damages — the connection is an underage drinker denied service in 2019.

The Upper East Side boy was banned from the hotel after repeatedly trying to buy drinks at The Mark Bar — where Champagne cost up to 90 bucks a coupe — with a fake ID, the hotel says.

“With every passing failed attempt, Weintraub became increasingly aggressive with those refusing to serve him,” the suit reads. Ultimately the hotel deemed him “someone not to be welcomed into the hotel.”

About a month later, Weintraub reappeared, this time on a dinner date with his father, “a well known doctor in Manhattan,” who was immediately informed of his son’s ban.

Weintraub Jr. first begged forgiveness, then shouted accusations that the hotel was antisemitic and that staff spit in people’s foods, the lawsuit contends.

While the Park Avenue doctor isn’t named in the suit, Theodore shares an address with Park Avenue, art-collecting cardiologist Dr. Philip Weintaub.

The distraught doctor dad “quickly quelled his son” and gave the hotel his business card, saying that he “understood” the ban.

For two years, Weintraub avoided the hotel until earlier this summer when he started to verbally attack staff. And then in late June, he began to picket alongside others, the suit claims.

Protesters, who told staff they were paid $25 an hour, began “systematically” appearing outside the hotel for hours, according to the lawsuit.

The hotel hired extra security and shortened outdoor dining hours when Weintraub and his sign-toting staff began yelling at guests.

“It was like non-stop,” the worker said, “going up to every single table back and forth for hours.”

Sometimes the protesters chanted, sometimes they waited in silence for VIP and celebrity guests to arrive, workers said.

Weintraub, the suit reads, also targeted individual workers, calling them “pedophiles,” making fun of one doorman’s bald head, and even telling one that his “mother is prostitute.”

“It’s been crazy just because they’ve been attacking us on a personal level,” the hotel worker said.
A couple of more “polite” demonstrators even said sorry, the worker told Patch.

The protesters have told Mark workers that if the owner lets Weintraub back in the bar, they would stop protesting, the worker said.

“Because you’re not used to hearing ‘no,’ that pushes you to do this because you have to get what you want?” the worker said.

“To me, it’s crazy, that sense of entitlement.”

Since June, hotel demonstrators have been reported to police at least three times, the NYPD confirms. Each of the three cases involved an 18-year-old filing a harassment complaint.

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A June 29 demonstration saw a guest smacking away a sign and demanding a protester get away from his wife, according to a worker and the suit.

On July 17, Weintraub and others were kicked out of the hotel at 4 a.m. when they prevented workers from preparing for the late-night arrival of a celebrity guest, the hotel claims.

Weintraub “flopped to the ground and pretended to be injured,” the hotel claims.

Weintrab’s crew began loudly shouting that the Mark denies the Holocaust when the VIP guest, who is Jewish, arrived about 5 a.m., the lawsuit contends.

The worker told Patch that The Mark’s eminently New York neighbors started yelling from their windows: “‘Shut up already!’”

“It was like something out of a movie.”

A shoving match between protesters and fans of a departing celeb ensued on July 18, when one protesters was punched in the face by a fan, the suit said.

No injuries were reported following any of the incidents, police said.

Despite calling the police on multiple occasions, the worker says the cops can’t do anything because the group is small and are not using sound amplification.

An NYPD spokesperson did not comment when asked.

The hotel’s attorney did not reply to repeated requests for comment.

When contacted by a reporter from Patch, Weintraub’s father said he was unaware of the lawsuit — or of his son’s interactions with the hotel since 2019 — and that he would make sure that the hotel is relieved of his progeny’s antisocial behavior.

The employee said that on July 4, he was shocked to see Weintraub and his pals pull up in his familiar black Cadillac Escalade.

“I asked them why they weren’t in the Hamptons. They said: ‘oh we were, we just got back,’” the worker recounted. “You come back from the Hamptons and come straight here?”

“It’s really a disaster,” said the employee, “That month was the worst month I’ve ever had here.”

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