TAMPA, Fla. — The U.S. Department of Labor said a pair of St. Petersburg restaurants were guilty of multiple violations, including withholding wages to cover other costs.

According to a Department of Labor investigation, the business, Red Mesa, Inc., which operated as Red Mesa Restaurant, and Veytia Ventures, which operated as Red Mesa Cantina, violated provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Specifically:

• Withheld bartenders' and servers’ tips to cover the cost of customer walkouts, which ranged from $10 to $175 per day.
• Deducted the cost of uniforms from employees’ wages which led some workers to be paid less than minimum wage.
• Paid an incorrect overtime rate to tipped employees and failed to combine hours when these employees worked at both restaurants in the same workweek. By doing so, the restaurants paid overtime at rates lower than required by law for hours over 40 in a workweek and failed to pay for all overtime hours in some workweeks.
• Paid kitchen staff straight time regardless of how many hours they worked. By doing so, the employer failed to pay them the additional half-time rate required for overtime hours.
• Failed to log workers’ hours in payroll records correctly, which kept some workers off payroll records.

The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division recovered $190,730 in back wages and damages for 89 workers who were victims of the employer's actions.

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