A Whyte Avenue pub shut down unexpectedly over the summer, and staff are still dealing with the financial hit – as one waitress said she is still owed hundreds of dollars in a final paycheck.
For Tess Crowther, the signs were there – when signs at the Tilted Kilt pub on Whyte Avenue came down.
“My very last day, they’d taken down the signs,” Crowther said. “There was a guy from corporate who came in and then we had no signs up the last night that we were open.”
Regardless, she told CTV News she didn’t expect the pub to shut down as suddenly as it did – the business closed down for good on June 29.
“There were rumours we were going to rename the bar and stay open, then the next morning we got the e-mail and said the landlord doesn’t want to renew the lease,” Crowther said.
Crowther said the e-mail came at the end of a two week pay period, and she says she didn’t receive a final paycheck – an estimated $800.
She said she’s tried making contact with the pub’s former owner Chad Howse, but she hasn’t heard from him yet.
CTV News tried to contact Howse, but calls were also not returned.
The provincial government said there is no way of knowing exactly when Crowther could get her money.
“How long this woman can expect to wait, it can take as little as one phone call to an employer, to straighten things out, or it can take months,” spokesperson Jay Fisher said.
Fisher said workers in Crowther’s position usually get their money, eventually – she hopes the situation is resolved sooner rather than later.
“I pay all my own schooling, I go to school in Toronto, so flights back and forth, food and everything, it’s a lot of money to me,” Crowther, an aspiring orchestra cellist, said. “This is sort of what I’m counting on to pay for the year.”
Unless she receives her check, Crowther says she may have to get a part-time job during school.
“It’s been kind of a nightmare.”
With files from Nicole Weisberg
