3 Petaluma teens allege wage theft by Subway franchisee
Alessandra Chavez wanted to save money for school and a car, and “learn to become more independent.”
Yanelli Vargas hoped to help her family with rent. Her mother works 4 a.m. to noon as a cook, her father is in Mexico and she has two younger brothers, including a 4-month-old with Down syndrome.
Lorenza Tapia’s family had recently been forced to move.
“We had to get a small place with just one room,” Tapia, 16, said as she sat with her two friends in an office of San Antonio High School in Petaluma, where they are all students.
“It’s me, my mom and my three younger brothers. My dad isn’t responsible, so he doesn’t help us with anything. My mom didn’t work at the time. So I had to work to help her out, because she couldn’t leave my younger brothers alone.”
So the three girls did what a lot of self-sufficient teenagers do. They applied for jobs at a fast-food restaurant.
‘It’s clearly somebody taking advantage of a situation’
Their misfortune, they said, was choosing local Subway sandwich shops. Chavez, Vargas and Tapia and several other San Antonio High students now allege the franchise owner failed to pay them wages they were owed.
“It’s clearly somebody taking advantage of a situation,” said San Antonio High teacher Eric Smith, who has been advising students on the matter since learning of the alleged wage theft during a spontaneous class discussion in September.
“It almost feels like their business plan, to take advantage of young employees in the hopes that they won’t know how to respond.”
The girls worked at the Subway shop at 961 Lakeville Highway in Petaluma. Tapia wound up floating among other locations, too, including the Subways at 221 N. McDowell Blvd., and 2620 Lakeville Highway in Petaluma, and at 124-B Calistoga Road in Santa Rosa.
According to county food inspection reports from the period during which the girls worked at Subway, at least three of the sandwich shops had the same owner (and still do): John Meza and his affiliated companies Crave Brands LLC and MZS Enterprises LLC, based in Brentwood. The Press Democrat was unable to document who owns the fourth. Crave Brands also owns a Subway shop in Windsor, according to food inspection reports.
Numerous attempts to reach Meza for this story, through listed numbers and through business associates, were unsuccessful. The effort included a visit to two of the involved Subway sandwich shops Tuesday, one in Santa Rosa and one in Petaluma. No managers were present. A reporter left business cards and requests to call.
The Press Democrat reached two other people, accountant Greg Lyons and attorney H.F. Layton, whose names appear on Crave Brands public filings. Each minimized his role in the company.
Layton declined to comment through a paralegal. Lyons offered to pass a message along to Meza.
Not long before the three San Antonio High students went to work for Meza, three of his companies — Crave Brands, MZS Enterprises and Apex Brands — received just under $190,000 in PPP loans, according to data from the U.S. Small Business Administration. That money was meant to keep employees in their jobs. About $66,000 of Meza’s PPP debt was forgiven by the U.S. government.
Tapia, Vargas and Chavez all filed reports with the California Labor Commissioner in the past two months, claiming a cumulative loss of more than $3,800, earned between December 2021 and October 2022.
“I know it’s not a lot of money,” said Vargas, 17, “but at least it was something.”
Tips, bonuses not received
The girls say they were deprived of tips, too. They got cash gratuities, but they say they never received the tips that were added to electronic transactions.
Tapia said one customer asked workers if they’d received the $20 tip he had left — a gift for their cheerful work. They had not.
Other times, a manager would plead with one of them to fill an unscheduled shift the next day, offering a $50 bonus. That money wouldn’t materialize, either.
The three students said they usually communicated with ownership through a payroll manager, Mike Ayesh. He also did not respond to repeated messages on his voicemail.
In speaking with The Press Democrat, Tapia, Chavez and Vargas had an array of complaints that ranged beyond wages.
No work permits, bathroom breaks
To start with, none of the students were asked to supply a work permit from their school, as required by the State of California. Tapia was 15 when she went to work at Subway; Vargas and Chavez were 16. The girls were never interviewed for the jobs.
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