Westmoreland County restaurant found guilty of violating labor laws

A Westmoreland County restaurant and its owner were found guilty in federal court of shortchanging servers and kitchen help more than $214,000 in wages over several years.

Picante LLC, its successor Picante Grille LLC and restaurant owner Helius Mucino paid no wages to servers who were instead solely compensated through tips, a U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania jury found after a three-day civil trial ending Sept. 21.

They also failed to pay dishwashers, bussers and cooks overtime when required from April 2014 through July 2017 and did not keep proper payroll records, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Following the September verdict, the Labor Department, which had investigated the case since 2019, proposed a final judgment with the court to secure more than $429,000 in back wages and liquidated damages for the employees.

Restaurant officials were not available for comment Tuesday.

The Labor Department determined that the Delmont restaurant, which operated as Picante Mexican Grille on Route 22, continued to pay less than the required amount of overtime for certain employees until 2019. The court ruled that a 2017 attempt by the employers to sell their business to another company with the same owners did not free the new business from liability for the earlier labor law violations.