A Burnaby hookah lounge that was ordered to pay two former servers a total of $25,661.19 in withheld wages has lost a bid to have the order overturned.
Bloo BBY Restaurant Ltd., which operates a hookah lounge at 4052 Hastings St., was ordered to pay the money in February after two ex-employees complained to the province’s director of employment standards about the business.
Both servers claimed they weren’t paid their earned wages on a regular basis and never got tips.
Bloo was also fined a total of $2,000 for failing to pay wages at least semi-monthly, failing to pay all earned wages on termination of employment, unlawfully dealing with tips and failing to produce or deliver employment records following a lawful demand.
Bloo appealed the decision to the Employment Standards Tribunal, claiming the two complainants’ unpaid wage claims are “largely, if not entirely, fabricated.”
The company argued the delegate who had made the earlier ruling had erred in law and failed to observe the principles of natural justice.
Bloo also said it had “relevant evidence not previously available.”
But Employment Standards Tribunal member Kenneth Thornicroft said Bloo’s submissions did not explain “in even the most rudimentary fashion” how the delegate had erred in law or failed to observe the principles of natural justice.
As for the “evidence not previously available,” Thornicroft noted the screenshots of text messages Bloo submitted on appeal were dated January 2020 and thus clearly “available” when the delegate was first conducting his investigation into the complaint.
“Apart from that fatal failing, these text messages are largely, if not entirely, irrelevant to the issues properly before me in this appeal,” Thornicroft said.
Thornicroft noted Bloo had made “no meaningful effort to participate in the investigation” into the server’s complaints, provided no information and ignored at least nine separate letters and phone messages from the Employment Standards Branch.
“Quite simply, (Bloo) was given a more than fair opportunity to respond to the two complaints,” Thornicroft wrote.
He concluded Bloo’s appeal had no reasonable prospect of succeeding and had to be dismissed.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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