Servers were illegally required to share their tips with managers and supervisors at a Pennsylvania restaurant and distillery, according to federal officials.

That was one of several violations an investigation into Wigle Whiskey and Pittsburgh Distilling Co. uncovered, according to a June 29 news release from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

Authorities say the business allowed bosses to split the shared “tip pool,” which is illegal under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Wigle Whiskey’s co-founder and owner told McClatchy News the restaurant did not intentionally violate this rule, which went into effect in December 2021. Rather, she says this was a “good faith dispute” over something that was debated nationally for two years.

“The new rule adopted technical definitions of a manager and when a manager who served customers could share in a tip pool,” the restaurant statement says. “We believed we were properly and fairly allocating tips to employees that were actively serving customers. When we learned the Department of Labor had a different interpretation, we immediately changed our method of allocating tips.

“We believe that employees who spend the majority of their time serving customers should share in tips, to the extent those tips were earned while serving customers,” the statement continued. “Regardless of title, our employees, throughout Covid, were often servers, many times carrying the weight of others who were not able to work throughout the...

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