Restaurant Owner Ordered to Pay Former Employees

An owner of an Encino restaurant was ordered Friday to pay a total of $20,000 in restitution to 10 former employees who had accused him of failure to pay minimum wage by requiring them to split their tips with management.

Avi Datner, co-owner of Masada, 16260 Ventura Blvd., pleaded no contest to a charge that he required employees to split tips. The practice is common in the restaurant industry, according to the prosecutor, Deputy City Atty. Richard A. Schmidt, and defense attorney Richard J. Beada.

Van Nuys Municipal Court Commissioner Joseph R. Ruffner also imposed fines of $2,000 on Datner.

The restitution represented an estimate of the amount employees lost from 1982 to 1985, when the complaint against Masada was filed, Schmidt said.

Charges against Marilyn Culbertson, another owner, were dropped because she had little to do with the day-to-day operation of the business, he said.