Douglaston eatery to pay $50,000 in back wages

The owners and operators of P & B’s Seville Restaurant in Douglaston will pay employees nearly $50,000 in back wages. The Queens-based Taki House Inc. and owner George Spanos have agreed to fork over the total sum to 17 employees, who were paid 40-hour-per-week salaries even when they were required to work overtime, according to court papers filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of New York.
The workers will be paid $45,950 in five installments due over the coming seven months, and the last payment must be made by November 1, 2007, said a Labor Department spokesperson. If the restaurant, located at 231-10 Northern Boulevard, fails to pay, their assets can be seized.
In January, the U.S. Department of Labor filed suit against the restaurant, formerly known as Seville Diner, for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). According to Philip Jacobson, director of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division district office in Manhattan, employees were forced to work overtime and were not paid time-and-a-half over the course of four and a half years, an investigation found. In addition, the restaurant did not keep proper records of the number of hours that employees worked and their regular rates of pay.
Under an agreement reached in court, P & B’s Seville neither admitted nor denied the charges, and if found in violation again, could face more serious penalties. Since the “consent agreement” was reached in court, the restaurant owners could be found in contempt if another violation is found.
“I don’t think most employers want to end up in that position,” said John Chavez, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor.
The restaurant must also post information about labor laws for workers and is barred from retaliating against the employees involved in the suit.
“Obviously, they’ve got to change their ways in terms of how they pay people,” Chavez said.
The lawyer for P & B’s Seville Restaurant did not return requests for a comment about the agreement by the time The Queens Courier went to print.