<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division determined that Durango restaurateur Alison Dance violated minimum-wage, overtime, record-keeping and child-labor laws at Cyprus Cafe.<\/p>\n
The Labor Department investigation spanned the two years between August 2012 and August 2014.<\/p>\n
The Durango Herald obtained a copy of the DOL investigator\u2019s findings through sources with first-hand knowledge of the investigation.<\/p>\n
According to the report, the agency \u2013 which is empowered only to enforce minimum-wage laws \u2013 found Dance liable for $27,194.82 in minimum-wage violations affecting 28 employees as a result of the restaurant\u2019s tip-pooling arrangement. Servers were asked to offer a share of their tips with the kitchen staff. Dance has long admitted that she erred in making Cyprus servers \u2013 whom she paid a lesser minimum wage \u2013 share their tips with the kitchen staff. She blamed the error on ignorance of Wage Order 30, the law forbidding this.<\/p>\n
The agency also found that Dance broke other labor laws after Cyprus employees filed complaints alleging she had engaged in wage theft.<\/p>\n
Dance says that the DOL\u2019s findings were inaccurate. She said she had never denied altering timecards, a practice she said was widespread in the restaurant industry. She said the only reason that the Labor Department had sided against her was because she couldn\u2019t prove that every time she had edited timecards, she had done so with the employees\u2019 permission.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t malicious,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t fraud. The fact is, I didn\u2019t keep every scrap of paper. I didn\u2019t keep records the way the DOL wanted me to. Stop dragging me through the mud, because it\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the initial complaints filed with the Labor Department, former Cyprus front-house manager Kristin Harmon, who worked at Cyprus for eight years, and former cook David McClelland said that Dance had, in effect, withheld thousands of dollars that should have gone to employees by refusing to pay overtime and deleting hours that employees worked. They said she routinely shaved hours from timecards.<\/p>\n
The final report found both allegations to be \u201csubstantiated.\u201d It determined Dance owed $2,496 to seven employees for overtime back wages.<\/p>\n
In a section dealing with \u201cinaccurate hours worked,\u201d the report said a review of Cyprus records shows Dance edited workers\u2019 hours. It said Dance explained the edits \u201cwere requested by the workers because they forgot to clock in or out and that many workers used her password to alter the hours-worked records.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency doesn\u2019t have authority to award back pay or damages to affected employees, but the finding opens the door to civil lawsuits against Dance.<\/p>\n
Harmon, one of the two employees who complained to the Labor Department, said Wednesday that the findings were bittersweet. She said the report vindicated whistleblowers, and ensured that \u201ca lot of people got paid. But the money was paid for the tipping-pool violations, which was probably an honest mistake. Whereas taking people\u2019s hours was very intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harmon said she received no money from tipping violations.<\/p>\n
The final report also found that Dance violated child-labor laws on two occasions in which minors worked later in the evening than lawfully allowed.<\/p>\n
The Labor Department investigation concluded Aug. 19. Since then, the Herald has twice sought copies of the findings. Labor officials denied both requests, saying the investigation was still open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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