One of Clarksville’s most popular pizza places has been given 15 days to pay a $10,500 fine for violating the state’s child labor laws. Chef Ilona, of Caprigios Pizza, says she takes full responsibility and admits some of her 15 & 16-year-old employees worked past 7 p.m. on school nights and more than the allotted hours per day.
In a social media post, Chef Ilona wrote:
Hello Caprigionauts!!
Wanted to say Thank you again for your continued support!! I pondered on this, not sure if I should say anything…I prayed and honestly I do want to say something because eventually someone will talk about it and then who knows what the story will have become. I figured it’s best coming from the SOURCE! I take full responsibility even if I didn’t realize the exact law due to my own lack of knowledge which I should have done my homework but didn’t. This will cost our company a civil penalty of $10,500 in fines to the Labor Board.Yes, you read correctly $10,500 which has to be paid within 15 calendar days of the order that was sent today.
Wow!!We have teenagers working for us, we have people with disabilities ( autism, aspergers etc…as well….) Been open for 3 years, this is the first time anyone ever inspected us from the Labor Board.(Hmmmm..)What was inspected was our teens documentation and the hours they have worked. We have 4 with 2 under 16, they are 15, one is about to be 16 within 30 days and we got in trouble (fined) because they have worked past 7pm on a school night. We are only open until 8pm, and some did work more than 3 hrs at times in one day. I turned in ALL paperwork as requested from an app on our system, I was very honest and didn’t hide a thing. I honestly didn’t realize that we had done anything against the labor law of minors.( My fault) Well, we have learned our lesson and will make sure we stay in compliance from this moment forward. I just received the email today.
I just hope everyone knows that we never intentionally meant any harm and the teenagers working for us are always eager to work and get paid. We pray that this too shall pass and as always I say ” NO Weapon formed against me shall prosper” As I mentioned earlier in the post, I Chef Ilona take full responsibility and own the mistake and just hope everyone knows that it does bother me that I did not do my job in not knowing what I should have known and been on top of it.I’m gonna try to get some rest now, its been a pretty trying day…..I wanted anyone that wanted the truth to read it here first….
Have a great night!!
Chef Ilona
–Chef Ilona / Caprigios Pizza / March 03, 2022
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