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Grub Street

Edited by Josh Ozersky with Daniel Maurer

All Posts Tagged: ‘labor laws’

NewsFeed 

3/19/08

9:00 AM

Life Is Not Exactly Nirvana for Buddha Bar Employees

The light at the end of the tunnel is a juicy settlement.Photo: Shanna Ravindra

According to legal papers filed last week, meatpacking district restaurant-lounge Buddha Bar hasn’t exactly been following the Noble Eightfold Path when it comes to its pay policies. A server, bartender, busboy, and six other employees have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing owner David Kay, CEO Nina Zajic, and GM Peter Jastimi of numerous stingy practices: withholding portions of their tips, redistributing tips to employees who weren’t entitled to them, failing to pay minimum wage, withholding a portion of “service charges” that diners assumed were paid to waiters, and forcing employees to pay for walkouts, uniforms, and credit-card fees. By the looks of these papers, it looks like the restaurant’s giant Buddha is the only thing sitting pretty.

Reyes, Goins, and Peralta v. Buddha Bar

NewsFeed 

1/18/08

11:38 AM

Park Avenue Café Waiter Says He Was Discriminated Against for Not Drinking Wine

Park Avenue Winter

The frosty interior of Park Avenue Winter.Photo: Michael Weber

A little over a week ago, we broke the news that Park Avenue Café (currently Park Avenue Winter) is being sued by employees who claim they were forced to participate in illegal tip-pooling and discriminated against because they were South Asian. The Sun now reports that a court has allowed former employee Mohammed Rahman to bring a suit on behalf of nonwhite employees at Park Avenue Café, but stopped short of allowing a class-action suit against parent chain Smith & Wollensky. One of the reasons Rahman claims he was given a hard time, and eventually fired, is that he didn’t drink alcohol and so couldn’t taste wine — which has to be the first time someone has been canned for not drinking on the job.

Related: Park Avenue Winter Experiences Legal Discontent

NewsFeed 

1/ 7/08

6:15 PM

Park Avenue Winter Experiences Legal Discontent

Uh-oh.

The Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group is in legal trouble again, this time thanks to a lawsuit filed against Park Avenue Café. The class-action suit filed by two captains and a waiter claims the restaurant — currently known as Park Avenue Winter — violated wage laws by forcing them to pool their tips with non-tipped employees like dishwashers, expediters, and coffee makers. Attorney Maimon Kirschenbaum tells us that the plaintiffs are expected to be joined by others in the next few days and will soon bring a separate complaint accusing assistant manager Santiago Pasentez of discriminating against the restaurant’s Bengali and Bangladeshi employees.

Read more»

 

 

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