By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE manager of the Cricket Club Restaurant and Pub says business has fallen by about ten percent after a wave of social media allegations accusing the long-standing Nassau establishment of mistreating staff — claims that labour inspectors have so far found no evidence to support.

Manager Dominique Smith said the backlash has hurt the restaurant’s reputation, even though it has also drawn new customers curious to see the business for themselves.

“A lot of people have questioned our reputation,” she said yesterday. “They have questioned our quality of service. They have questioned our integrity. We have had a lot of issues. People write things on the internet all the time, others just believe something comes out of thin air and continuously forward it from all these anonymous sources.”

The online posts, which spread widely last week, accused Ms Smith, her sister Tammy, and their mother and owner, Connie Robinson, of running a “toxic” workplace where staff were underpaid, overworked, and mistreated. The unverified claims included allegations of unpaid long hours, lack of breaks, no payslips or overtime, and unsanitary conditions such as rats, leaks, and dirty bathrooms.

In response, the Department of Labour launched an inspection at the West Bay Street restaurant on Tuesday. Senior Deputy Director of Labour Patrenda Russell-Brice said yesterday that the probe was ongoing but inspectors had not found anything that appeared “egregious.”

“I don’t think whatever the issues were to that point of being egregious, but whatever the situation may be, it’s a straightforward situation,” she said. “Nothing to the detriment of anything.”

Mrs Russell-Brice said the inspection team visited the restaurant during both the day and evening shifts to observe operations and interview staff. She added that no legal issues or breaches of labour laws had been reported so far.

Ms Smith said inspectors met with staff and reviewed documents, including payroll slips. “We did everything right,” she said. “We pay our staff. I showed them what we had concerning everything, our payroll slips, and they interviewed all our staff, and I feel as though it went well because we confirmed what we were saying. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

She said the restaurant maintains set shifts from 7am to 3pm and 3pm to 11pm and has always operated professionally throughout its nearly three decades in business.

“We don’t sit here and argue and fight with each other or anything like that,” Ms Smith said. “We’ve been in business for about 27, almost 30 years, so we still have a level of professionalism when it comes to dealing with our customers and also our staff.”

The final report from the Department of Labour is expected in the coming weeks, though Mrs Russell-Brice said there is no fixed deadline.

Ms Smith said the anonymous nature of the social media posts made it difficult for her family to respond publicly. “We as a family could not defend ourselves against that post,” she said. “We couldn’t argue it. We couldn’t go back and forth. There was no way we could have a back and forth or show what had happened or even dispute anything because it’s an anonymous post from an anonymous source.”