King’s Head owner accused of stiffing staff Restaurateur who accepted nearly $54,000 in pandemic-fuelled public donations denies nickel-and-diming workers by manually adjusting system-logged shifts By: Eva Wasney Posted: 5:12 PM CDT Friday, Jun. 9, 2023

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This article was published 09/06/2023 (905 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg restaurateur who received tens of thousands of dollars in public donations during the pandemic is being accused by former employees of skimming wages.

Lance Luschak, 25, worked part-time at The King’s Head Pub & Eatery between 2016 and 2022. After six years of late nights spent refilling ice wells and restocking glassware, he stopped showing up to work last August and was subsequently fired.

“After all the mistreatment,” he said. “I didn’t really think any courtesy of two weeks was really, in my opinion, necessary.”

In the months before his termination, Luschak and other King’s Head employees started noticing discrepancies with their pay. Further examination of the pub’s online payroll system revealed a longstanding pattern of manual shift adjustments — a few minutes here, a few minutes there — resulting in a modest, but consistent reduction of hours worked.

“You could see clear as day in our online sign-in, sign-out system that our hours were being adjusted,” Luschak said. “That adds up.”

Luschak took his concerns to Manitoba Employment Standards. In claim findings viewed by the Free Press, the department determined he was owed $633 in outstanding vacation pay, as well as $713 in missing wages, unpaid overtime and general holiday pay over a six-month audited period. Luschak said he was never paid time-and-a-half for working stat holidays at the bar, as is legally required in Manitoba.

The funds were paid out and the claim closed last month.

“For a guy like me, that’s a big chunk of change,” said Luschak, who was earning minimum wage plus tips at the time. “That’s grocery money.”

The company denied the allegations in a statement issued by King’s Head’s lawyer.

“King’s Head values its employees and strives to ensure that all staff members are properly compensated for the work that they perform and are justly owed,” reads a statement provided by Kosta Vartsakis of Thompson Dorfman Sweatman.

“King’s Head categorically denies that it has ever knowingly engaged in the restriction or reduction of wages from its staff members.”

Vartsakis added the company only became aware of the “purported complaints” when the Free Press reached out for comment.

The Free Press spoke with five other former King’s Head employees who experienced similar payroll discrepancies or were aware of the practice at the Exchange District establishment.

None of those employees filed Employment Standards claims due to perceived complexity, fear of retribution or time elapsed since their employment (the department conducts investigations within six months of departure). All cited concerns about the treatment of current employees by King’s Head owner Christopher Graves — who received more than $50,000 in donations from a pandemic-era GoFundMe campaign — as their main reason for coming forward.

Since 2019, Employment Standards has received five claims against the King’s Head, according to a provincial spokesperson. The complaints have revolved around unpaid wages, vacation wages and reporting pay. Three of the complaints were resolved voluntarily and one ended with the employee not responding to the department’s inquiries.

Dozens of shift records examined by the Free Press show after-the-fact shift changes dating back to 2019 — around the time Graves introduced an online payroll and biometric time tracking system to the workplace.

“With six months of regular pay for me, he stole $700,” Luschak alleges of his former boss. “And that was just one employee.”

Previously, employees tracked their hours using paper time sheets. With the new system staff clocked in and out using a fingerprint scanner, which communicated automatically with the pub’s payroll software and created a to-the-minute log of time worked.

Yet, a former King’s Head manager responsible for payroll said they were instructed by Graves to retroactively adjust shift start and end times.

“He wanted everything rounded and in the company’s favour,” said the ex-staff member.

In a phone interview, Graves denied the allegation.

“There are no discrepancies when it comes to hours at all,” said Graves, who has owned the King’s Head since late 2017.

“There are no discrepancies when it comes to hours at all.”–Chris Graves

“Most of our staff members would forget to punch in or forget to punch out, so in order for them to actually be paid we would have to go in there and adjust their hours,” he adds.

Despite this explanation, all of the records viewed by the Free Press show employee-initiated logs, followed by changes to start and end times. These adjustments resulted in shifts being shortened by between two and 25 minutes.

Over a sample of 34 shifts from 2019 to 2022, Luschak had nearly seven hours trimmed from his time worked.

“I thought that if I worked all the hours, I would get paid for all the hours,” Luschak said. “But instead, I worked all of the hours and only got paid for some of the hours, which is wrong.”

These kinds of changes appear to have been a daily practice, taking place every shift within examined workweeks. During a 30-hour workweek last June, a bartender interviewed by the Free Press appears to have lost out on more than an hour of wages, with each shift shortened by between 15 and 20 minutes.

The practice seems to have been discontinued in recent months. King’s Head general manager Peter Shelley wasn’t aware of any time-management complaints and said that since at least October — when he assumed the management role — no adjustments had been made to employee hours.

“Once you put your finger in, you’re good to go,” Shelley said in a phone interview.

Graves declined to comment on the findings of Luschak’s Employment Standards claim but said he introduced the biometric system “to make payroll easier and to make it more efficient.”

He also stated that his employees are encouraged to “go through the Manitoba Labour Board if they feel like there’s something that we’re not doing properly.”

Meanwhile, lawyer Vartsakis said former and current staff members are encouraged to contact management if they have concerns about their wages, or about general issues, so “that these matters can be properly addressed and resolved.”

After Luschak filed his claim with Employment Standards in September, he received a series of text messages from Graves threatening to initiate a Canada Revenue Agency audit.

“We will be forwarding you what we will be submitting to CRA for your cash tips by next week,” read the messages. “Everyone will now be susceptible to (CRA) audits.”

The audit never materialized.

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In the last 14 months, Graves has become involved in two new restaurant businesses.

In March 2022, he was listed as a co-owner of Bellamy’s Family Dining in St. Vital; and in April of this year, he celebrated the opening of The Friskee Pearl, a large seafood restaurant in the home of the former Earls on Main Street. Graves is also a part-owner of Fiddler’s Green Cannabis, a weed shop next to the King’s Head, according to filings with the Manitoba Companies Office.

Graves confirmed that the same online payroll and biometric sign-in systems are in use at The Friskee Pearl.

The new restaurant businesses follow a May 2021 GoFundMe campaign, entitled “Help the King’s Head Pub,” which raised $53,715 on Graves’s behalf. The fundraiser was organized by patrons of the bar in response to its owner’s claims the King Street establishment was on the brink of closure after a year of public health restrictions.

“It helped the King’s Head survive,” Graves said when asked how the funds were used.

At the time, he stated the money would be allocated to roof and masonry repairs — two projects he said have been completed and are in progress, respectively.

During the pandemic, Graves positioned himself as an outspoken advocate for the local restaurant industry. Prior to the fundraiser, Graves said he sold his home to keep the bar open. He regularly discussed financial hardships with staff and local media and described lost income “in the six-figure range” in social media posts.

Dine-in food and beverage businesses were hit hard during the pandemic. A recent Restaurants Canada survey indicates 80 per cent of independent eateries are still carrying between $50,000 and $500,000 in pandemic-era debt.

“I have people who have invested in me because of how we handled ourselves at the King’s Head.”–Chris Graves

Despite the apparent financial hardships at the King’s Head, Graves bought into Bellamy’s and launched The Friskee Pearl as a sole proprietor less than a year later.

“I have people who have invested in me because of how we handled ourselves at the King’s Head,” Graves said when asked how the new businesses were financed. “I have silent investors.”

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After six years of late nights spent working what he said was a thankless job, Luschak has left the restaurant world completely.

“I’m never, never going back into the industry,” he said. “It feels great to not have to go in to work at a bar late at night. Instead, I can go and be a customer.”

While the result of his Employment Standards claim has been validating, Luschak is considering launching a civil case against his former employer to recoup what he may be owed beyond the department’s investigation period.

“It’s my money, right?” Luschak said. “I’m going back for everything.”

— with files from Kevin Rollason

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney