NY Turkish Restaurants, Hookah Lounge Face Labor Law Class Action

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An individual owner and the respective operating companies of Babylon Hookah Lounge, Ali Baba’s Terrace, and Ali Baba’s Turkish Cuisine are facing a proposed collective action filed by a former employee who claims he was denied proper wages. The plaintiff says he worked for the defendants as a kitchen helper, dishwasher, and delivery worker but was not paid minimum, overtime, or spread-of-hours wages as required by law. Though he received tips from customers, the defendants were not permitted to take a tip credit against the plaintiff’s wages, according to the suit, because he spent more than 20 percent of his workday performing non-tipped duties and they never gave him notice of a tip credit. Instead, the restaurants should have paid him the full minimum wage, the complaint says.

The lawsuit further claims the plaintiff was paid a fixed salary regardless of how many hours he worked, meaning some of his weekly hours were uncompensated. He says he was also required to pay out-of-pocket for “tools of the trade,” such as work shoes, and was never reimbursed for his expenses.

On top of that, the defendants allegedly failed to keep an accurate record of employees’ hours and failed to provide them with wage notices and weekly wage statements.