A Philly cafe stole $1,200 in tips from workers, the city Labor Department found
The Northern Liberties cafe paid workers the tips the city said they were owed, but in one worker’s case, the payment took two years.
One Shot Coffee, a Northern Liberties cafe, stole $1,200 in tips from two workers, Philadelphia’s Office of Worker Protections says, and it took two years for the business to pay back one of the workers the amount owed.
The city’s enforcement was among 55 wage-theft cases the Department of Labor’s Office of Worker Protections closed last year. As a result of its investigations, the office, which enforces seven labor laws, recovered more than $180,000 for workers last year, according to a report released this month.
That includes a $24,5000 Fair Workweek settlement with Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse and paid sick-leave settlements with St. Christopher’s Hospital and Maxim Healthcare.
According to a 2015 Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple University Law report, in any given week about 130,000 Philadelphia workers experience wage theft.
The One Shot cases show the difficulty of enforcing the city’s seven-year-old wage-theft law, which was designed to make it easier for workers to take action against employers who do not pay workers what they’re owed.
» READ MORE: Philadelphia’s ‘real minimum wage’ is among the worst in the U.S.
In September 2020, after a worker filed a complaint, the city found One Shot had shorted that worker $424 in tips and ordered the business to make the worker whole. When One Shot did not pay the full amount and did not respond to the city’s demands for payment, the city placed the cafe on its “Bad Actors” list, which it uses to try to publicly shame employers who refuse to comply with the law.
Two years later, acting on another complaint, the city found One Shot had stolen $775 in credit-card tips from a different worker and once again ordered the business to make that worker whole.
In both cases, workers kept copies of sales reports as evidence and shared them with the city, according to determination letters it sent to One Shot.
The city also told One Shot owner Melissa Baruno that if the business did not comply with the 2020 order, the matter would head to the Law Department, which could file a court case to collect the stolen wages and assess fees and penalties. The city did so because One Shot was a repeat offender, said Candace Chewning, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Worker Protections.
Last August, One Shot paid the two workers the tips they were owed.
» READ MORE: A workers’ guide to wage theft: What to do if your boss steals your wages in Pa.
The Office of Worker Protections did not originally assess One Shot fees and penalties because it generally does not do so with small businesses, Chewning said.
In a series of text messages, Baruno said there was no truth to the city’s findings of wage theft: “I am admitting to zero wrongdoing” and “I wanted the case to just be done.”
“I could have kept going because I had otherwise evidence and records but I’m a single parent and very busy business owner and needed to move on after 1.5 years,” Baruno wrote, adding that “I had 4-5 really disgruntled employees in a year” and that One Shot pays ”an amazing hourly wage of $16-17 an hour.”
“I love my staff and count on them to help me run my shop,” they said. “The tips that they earn are automatically calculated for them on my [point-of-sale] system. I have nothing to do with it.”
Baruno’s lawyer, William Harvey, added in a statement: “The facts are that, promptly after the complaint was filed by a former employee, One Shot responded with facts and documents to rebut the claimant’s assertions. Twelve months then passed at which time, like many small businesses would, One Shot made a decision that it was more economical to settle with the former employees rather than spend money with an attorney to continue to defend itself, money that it didn’t have.”
Harvey described One Shot as an “iconic institution” and that since opening in 2005 it “has had more than 100 employees and has NEVER been sued by a current or former employee.”
Baruno also said they appealed the case, though Harvey declined to share documentation of any appeal, citing privacy concerns. The city’s Office of Worker Protections said this was not the case.