A local judge ruled last week the previous owners of Kellys Brew Pub along Route 66 in Albuquerque violated the city’s minimum-wage law, costing its employees thousands of dollars.
The Albuquerque Journal reported Circuit Judge Benjamin Chavez said Dennis and Janice Bonfantine failed to follow a minimum-wage ordinance approved by voters in 2012, thus owing lost wages to its employees.
The newspaper provided more background in the class-action lawsuit:
In 2012, Albuquerque voters approved an ordinance that raised the minimum wage in the city. For tipped employees, the minimum wage rose to $5.25 by 2015, plus tips, up from $2.13 for servers before the ordinance passed, according to the suit.
After the ordinance went into effect, the Bonfantines illegally forced employees to pay for the minimum wage increase by turning $3 per hour over to the restaurant owners from their tips from 2013 until 2016, Welch said.
In 2016, Kellys Brew Pub was sold to Santa Fe Dining, which is not named in the suit.
Kellys’ previous owners challenged the minimum-wage change in court but lost. One of the lawyers in the case said the final judgment could be more than $1 million. The ordinance entitles those employees to win back triple the wages that were withheld, plus attorneys’ fees. A final total will be determined in October.
One former employee, who said she lost $5,000 during one year there, also said the brewpub’s management at the time was “super laid-back and unprofessional.”
The Kellys Brew Pub case brings to mind the 2013 saga of the Route 66 Malt Shop in Albuquerque, which also refused to pay the minimum-wage increase. The Route 66 Malt Shop lost its lease two years later amid the furor and lawsuits.
Kellys Brew Pub is in the former Jones Motor Co., built in 1939. Kellys Brewery bought the building in 1999 and restored many of the original design elements, including Texaco pumps and the original garage doors. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places and remains a city landmark.
As previously reported, Kellys was sold a few years ago and appears to be thriving. So it seems it hasn’t been tainted by the previous owners’ actions.
(Image of Kellys Brew Pub in Albuquerque by Second-Half Travels via Flickr)