INS Fines Store for Its Hiring Practices : Oxnard: La Gloria grocery faces a $60,200 penalty for employing illegal workers. The investigation began in January, 1991.

The largest Latino supermarket in Oxnard has been hit with the biggest fine ever imposed on a Ventura County business for employing illegal immigrants, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service announced Tuesday.

The $60,200 fine against La Gloria Market was levied after a yearlong investigation into the market’s hiring practices and an Oct. 16 raid that resulted in the arrest and deportation of the store manager and five other unauthorized workers, an INS official said.

The INS cited the market and its owner, Mexican businessman Fernando Ozuna, on two counts of hiring and employing unauthorized workers, 130 counts of failing to complete employment-eligibility forms, and 217 other counts of record-keeping violations, said Michael Molloy, head of the INS’ Oxnard office.

“We believe they were way out of line,” Molloy said. “We’re trying to say ‘Hey, you can’t operate like this.’

“It is a good market and does a great business,” Molloy said. “But I don’t think the owner took the reporting requirements of the immigration service very seriously.”

La Gloria Market, opened in 1987, is the largest Latino supermarket in Oxnard and the commercial anchor of the city’s Transportation Center redevelopment project.

Ozuna, who has homes in both Mexico City and Ventura, was unavailable for comment Tuesday. His lawyer, James G. Spirakis, said the company will appeal the fine to an administrative law judge.

Humberto Ramirez, Ozuna’s personnel manager, conceded Tuesday that the company inadvertently hired some undocumented workers and failed to sufficiently document proof of citizenship, residency or work permits from prospective employees. But he said the practice occurred largely under a previous manager who was replaced last year.

“We never had the intention of hiring someone illegal, but we’re not immigration experts,” said Ramirez, whose market employs about 70 people.

Ramirez said several violations involved employees who had proper work authorization when hired, but whose work permits later lapsed. He said he has since programmed his computer to kick out names of employees whose permits are expiring so that he can post notices alongside the time clock, telling those employees to get extensions or face dismissal.

Ramirez said he hopes that the fine will be reduced, if not dismissed altogether. The market is in no danger of closing, he said, unless the INS requires a lump-sum payment.

“It still would be hard to pay, but we could make payments,” Ramirez said.

The INS launched its investigation in January, 1991, after several former employees, both legal and illegal residents, complained about being paid less than minimum wage and no overtime, Molloy said. An ensuing U.S. Labor Department investigation found no truth to those allegations.

Molloy said the employees who complained had been fired by the supermarket. Their gripes arose during a United Food and Commercial Workers Union organizing drive that ultimately failed last year.

The previous record fine levied by the INS against a Ventura County employer was on Maryse Nicole Originals, a Newbury Park doll manufacturer. An INS official said the company was fined $30,300 in early 1990 for employing 81 illegal immigrants among its 100-person work force.

The INS has arrested and deported about 20 La Gloria Market employees since the store opened five years ago, Molloy said. He said most were picked up in raids elsewhere.

La Gloria’s manager, Jose Luis Montier, was among the six people arrested and deported to Mexico after October’s raid. He since has returned to work with INS authorization while he fights deportation proceedings.