Servers entitled to money, labour board rules in restaurant owner’s appeal

The Manitoba Labour Board rejected an appeal from a St. Boniface restaurant owner, saying four former servers were entitled to money labelled as advances on their pay stubs.

Chaise Café and Lounge owner Shea Ritchie argued the employees should have to repay those advances.

A Jan. 17, 2025 decision by the labour board, included in the department’s 2024-25 annual report tabled in the legislature Monday, disagreed, stating the money was actually tips the servers had earned.

“The amounts were odd numbers, like $18 or other random numbers versus a whole lump sum like $100 or $200, which one might expect if they were, in fact, pay advances,” the decision read.

One of the employees said they were told the tips appeared as advances on pay stubs to avoid tax implications, the decision stated.

The employer said it used advances as an incentive program and “good” employees would have the advances forgiven, while employees who were not good could be directed to repay the money, the document stated.

The board found none of the employees were aware of an “incentive program,” nor did any of them request a pay advance.

“Simply calling it an advance does not make it an advance. This is particularly so when the employee was unaware of any such scheme to both pay an amount equal to tips and claw it back when an employee does something to upset the employer,” the decision said.

The decision did not say how much Ritchie was seeking in repayment from the four former employees.

Once a decision is made to pay tips to an employee, the amount becomes a wage and employers can’t demand repayment under Manitoba’s labour laws.

Employers can’t demand repayment of wages “by cloaking the amount with a different name or by claiming it is an arbitrary payroll error,” the board wrote.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Ritchie blamed the situation on a payroll administrator’s error. He said the payments were advances that employees requested at one time or another for a myriad of reasons. He said employees were lying when they told the board they never asked for advances.

He said he would delay repayment for some employees and forgive other loans altogether.

Pay advances and payroll error corrections can be deducted from employees’ wages, according to the province’s labour standards. Employees and employers should agree on how and when to repay the money when an advance is given. If employers and employees cannot agree on how and when a cash advance will be paid back, employers can deduct the amounts equal to what would be allowed if they had a garnishment, the legislation states.

The labour board decision noted the employer did not attend the hearing. Ritchie told the Free Press he had attended several previous hearings related to the issue and he felt there was no point to attend again because the board would dismiss his appeal.

A numbered company registered under Ritchie’s name is currently subject to a lawsuit about an outstanding loan amount. The lawsuit says the the company, 6955461 Manitoba Ltd., operating as Chaise Café and Lounge, owes $80,000 on a $100,000 loan the company took out in 2021, as well as $28,000 from a business line of credit.

The lawsuit says that in May 2025, the company stopped paying back the loan.

Ritchie told the Free Press in 2022 he was selling both of his restaurants, Chaise Corydon and Chaise Café & Lounge on Provencher Boulevard, and moving out of the country because he believed Canada was becoming a communist state.

Ritchie was fined multiple times for contravening provincial public health orders imposed on restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic to slow the spread of the virus. He had said the pandemic “destroyed” his business and the government’s direction on how businesses could operate would eventually lead to restricting the freedoms of residents.

In 2023, one of the tickets he received was dismissed by the province, but Ritchie said at the time he had 10 outstanding fines totalling about $60,000.

Last month, Ritchie said he has no plan to pay the fines.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca