Raffle winner could inherit German gastropub’s labour complaints
Current owner says she’ll take responsibility for grievances
The winner of a German gastropub being raffled off just before New Year’s may have to deal with more than the average fledgling restaurateur.
Whoever is chosen as the new owner of Das Gasthaus on Danforth Ave. — current owner Ruthie Cummings is set to draw the winner Dec. 30 — may also be on the hook for settling, and paying out, labour complaints with former employees.
Das Gasthaus is the subject of eight complaints to the Ministry of Labour, two of which have not yet been resolved. It is unclear who will be responsible for them after the restaurant changes hands.
“With a sale of a business, liability of the seller may transfer through to the purchaser or new employer,” Ministry of Labour spokeswoman Janet Deline told the Star in an email.
“The scenarios involving a sale of a business are complex and would require an employment standards officer to determine who is responsible for, let’s say, the payment of wages or anything else.”
In an email to the Star, Cummings said she is awaiting information about the two claims, which she called “small.” She said she is confident they will be resolved in her favour.
Regardless, she said, the claims will not be transferred to the new owner.
“The responsibility of any MOL claims are still mine as they occurred on my business corporation. As the director, after the corporation is dissolved, I become personally responsible,” Cummings said in an email. “This is regardless of who is the new owner of the location . . . simple as that.”
As a “goodwill gesture,” Cummings said she has also decided to donate $15 from the sale of every raffle ticket to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
She and her three-year-old restaurant made headlines in the fall when she announced the contest to raffle it off for $150 a ticket, so she could spend more time with her aging parents.
The restaurant was back in the news days later when the online site Cummings chose to host the raffle said the contest did not meet its terms and conditions. Tickets for the raffle, which is now back up and running with a new host, are on sale until Dec. 24.
Cummings told the Star last week she is still aiming to sell 4,000 tickets, to bring in about $600,000. She told the Star last week about 500 tickets have been sold.
The problems that gave rise to the complaints filed with the Ministry of Labour started shortly after Cummings opened Das Gasthaus in 2013, she told the Star.
All filed by former employees, the complaints involved minimum wage, statutory deductions, holiday pay and being threatened or penalized in some way with their pay, Deline says.
One of them was filed by former chef Maximilien Corsillo, who was later charged with criminal harassment. The charges have been withdrawn. Cummings has entered into a peace bond with the former chef and there is a court order restricting him from contacting her for a year and mandating that he attend counselling at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
The labour matter, in which the chef alleged Cummings failed to pay him about $2,500, was eventually settled for about $800, according to both parties.
The two complaints that have not been resolved were both filed earlier this year. They are still in the initial processing stage.
In terms of the labour grievances, Cummings told the Star they are par for the course of owning a restaurant and that dealing with the complaints has been “quite expensive” and “very emotional.”
When a business changes hands during a complaint investigation, Deline said, an employment standards officer will have to determine “who the employer was at the time of the alleged contravention” of the Employment Standards Act. They will do that, she said, by looking at how the employment arrangement is structured.
“Is it tied to the owner or the business? If the company then gets bought — would the contract be transferred automatically to the new owner?” she said. “It really is case by case.”
Once the employment standards officer makes a determination, Deline says, that is who will be on the hook for the complaints.
Deline, who said she cannot comment on specific cases, says information on claims would have to be fully disclosed to the new owner of a business, such as a restaurant. At that point, she said, it will be up to the new owner to decide “whether they want to go ahead with the transaction.”