Fired For Being Too Old: Unfair or Good Business?

"Suppose you're an Italian restaurateur and you want to have only Italian men as your waiters because that's the ambience you want in your restaurant," Pilon posed. "Shouldn't you be able to do that?"

Employment Age Discrimination laws prohibit employers from firing workers simply "for being too old." But some argue that age is an important factor to take into consideration.

(ABC News/Getty)

Apparently not. In the 1990s, the U.S. government tried to force Hooters, the restaurant chain famous for sexy waitresses, to hire men to wait on customers. Only after Hooters mocked the government by running ads showing what a Hooter's man would look like -- a burly, unshaven hooters manager in a wig, tight shirt and shorts modeled for the ad -- did the government drop its case.

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Pilon argues that a business should be free to run itself the way it wants to, but lawyers like Schwartz disagree.

"Who has the right to say that you should stop working when you're 50 or 52 or 53? The boss?" Schwartz asked.

Why not the boss? It's the boss's money. Give me a break.