Casa Tequila owner in Seabrook ordered to pay $911K in back wages, damages to employees
SEABROOK — The owner of Casa Tequila is being ordered to pay nearly a million dollars in back wages and liquidated damages to 99 underpaid employees who worked in his restaurants in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
A federal court judge approved the consent order last week requiring Gilberto Reyes, of Concord, to pay $911,568 to the employees because they were shortchanged on overtime and minimum wage payments in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The order comes after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor into the pay practices at the restaurants. Reyes owns El Rodeo Mexican Restaurant in Concord and two Casa Tequila restaurants one in Seabrook and another in Salem, Massachusetts.
“El Rodeo and Casa Tequila deprived nearly 100 workers of their rightful pay, making it that much harder for these workers to support themselves and provide for their families,” said District Director Steven McKinney, of the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. “The more than $900,000 in wages and damages recovered following this investigation will go a long way towards making these workers whole after the losses they suffered.”
The investigation revealed, according to the court documents, that from July 24, 2020, to at least Dec. 24, 2022, the restaurants did not pay employees for all hours worked or at the federal minimum wage. It also showed that some nonexempt workers such as cooks, dishwashers and bussers were not paid overtime at one-and-half times their regular rates of pay for hours over a 40-hour work week and that the restaurants did not properly calculate tipped employees’ overtime rates based on their regular rates of pay, as opposed to their cash wage rates.
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Investigators also uncovered that the restaurants failed to maintain complete and accurate records of hours worked and payments made to employees.
The consent order entered on March 23 in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire requires the restaurants to pay the affected employees $455,784 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. They must also comply with federal minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping requirements, and cooperate with the department’s investigations.
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The court also forbid the restaurants from threatening or retaliating against employees who cooperate with investigations or otherwise exercise or assert their Fair Labor Standards Act rights.
“These types of wage violations – too often found in the restaurant industry – are preventable when employers access the available information and resources,” McKinney added. “We strongly encourage employers to reach out to the Wage and Hour Division to better understand their legal responsibilities. We also encourage workers who may have been victims of wage theft to contact our office to explore filing a complaint.”
To learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division, visit their website at https://bit.ly/3Zs1815. Employers and workers can also call the division confidentially with questions regardless of immigration status. The department can speak with callers confidentially in more than 200 languages through the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for i-OS and Android devices to ensure hours and pay are accurate.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Casa Tequila owner in Seabrook ordered to pay $911K in back wages
