Las Vegas, Henderson restaurants hit with $500K labor violations fine

The owner of three Juan’s Flaming Fajitas &Cantina restaurants has been fined nearly $500,000 for labor violations.

The restaurant improperly withheld overtime pay, and two employees were incorrectly exempted from overtime pay, according to a U.S. Department of Labor press release.

Both of those were in violation of the Fair Labor and Standards Act.

There are two Juan’s Flaming Fajitas &Cantina locations in Las Vegas and one in Henderson.

For the 32 employees who worked at more than one location, their hours were not combined, the press release stated.

All these violations amounted to $237,692 in back wages, $237,692 in liquidated damages, and $12,050 in civil penalties for the restaurant, the department said.

Gene Ramos, a wage and hour division district director, stated that these types of violations are commonly found in food service industry investigations.

“Our investigators found Juan’s Flaming Fajitas &Cantina deliberately withheld overtime pay earned by dozens of hard-working employees,” Ramos said in the release.

Owner Juan Vazquez, however, claims that overtime pay was not withheld deliberately. He said the violations were a mistake, and he is paying back all lost wages to employees.

Employees who worked at more than one location were paid in separate checks, Vazquez said. The restaurant has locations on Tropicana Avenue and Centennial Parkway.

“For example, if one of our employees at Trop was working 17 hours, and then the same one would go 30 hours at our Centennial location, we paid the 17 hours at Trop and give them a check for that,” Vazquez said. “From Centennial, we would give them a check for the 30 hours,” said Vazquez.

The government, however, requires those three locations to be under one enterprise, said Vazquez.

If the same employee worked at different locations, Vazquez would need to combine hours from the different locations, pay out wages in the same check, and pay any overtime if needed.

“We took our punishment… We have never, never deliberately withheld money or or pay from anybody. We just didn’t know. We didn’t know those rules or guidelines,” stressed Vazquez.

Contact Annie Vong at avong@reviewjournal.com.