Five Wingstop Restaurant Locations Pay $3 Million for Wage Theft

Five Kern County Wingstop restaurants and their owner, Clinton Lewis, face $3,161,606 in citations for wage theft violations affecting 551 workers, the California Department of Industrial Relations announced Thursday.

Lewis allegedly created separate corporate entities for each of his restaurants, which made it appear that each restaurant was a different employer, preventing employees from receiving higher minimum wage, overtime pay, and missed meal break premiums when working at more than one location owned by Lewis, the state agency said.

The state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office found that legally, Lewis’s restaurants were a single employer at the five locations, and the ...