Federal investigators say the operators of Red Mesa Restaurant and Red Mesa Cantina withheld wages to cover operating costs.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that the restaurants violated several provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. As a result of the investigation, the division recovered $190,730 in back wages and liquidated damages for 89 affected employees, according to a release.
“By law, two or more establishments that are commonly owned are considered a single enterprise,” Nicolas Ratmiroff, wage and hour district director in Tampa, said in the release. “In this case, the employer assigned employees to work at two locations they owned. They should have added the hours worked at these locations together and paid overtime when the combined hours exceeded 40 hours in the same workweek.”
Ratmiroff said restaurants operating with the same owners under different corporate names “does not remove that liability” and added that employers are responsible for “understanding and complying with federal law regarding pay practices.”
The Red Mesa restaurants serve Mexican fusion food and are located at 4912 Fourth St. N and 128 Third St. S. The original restaurant on Fourth Street opened in 1995 and later expanded to its downtown cantina.
According to the division, the employers withheld bartenders' and servers' tips to cover the “cost of customer walkouts,” which ranged from approximately $10 to $175 per day.
The division says...
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