Legal Question in Employment Law in Massachusetts

Food Preparation sanitary rules require that someone wear a hair net or have short hair. Having said that I am aware of no law or rule that requires that an employee have certain length hair to work in a restaurant. I am not clear on what kind of job he applied to get.

However, a company does have the right to proscribe certain conditions to hire someone including length of hair if it is justifiable given the job for which is being applied.

If the rule requires shorter hair, then the restaurant should have said our rules require that hair length for men be x long, he should have been told and asked if he would agree to same.

Without more information it is hard to be clearer in my answer. One problem you have in taking this further is that I doubt anything was put in writing. So denying him a job over his hair is going to be hard to prove.