My Manager Says He Is Going To Call The Police On Me Over Two Tables Walking Out Without Paying

Location: Davidson County, North Carolina

I worked as a waitress at a restaurant that is a bar and grill. Tonight we were hosting an event and got extremely busy.

I had two tables get mad about wait times, they got their food but not their drinks. Both of these tables were already mad and when I went to process their payment, the computer said I needed manager authorization. I went to the bar where the manager was bartending and waited, attempting to get her attention several times. I assertively said her name but I could not get her attention because there were at least 50+ people standing around waiting on their drinks. I couldn’t go behind the bar because I had already been told earlier in the night not to by the manager.

The first table had a bill of around $130. They had ordered drinks that they requested to be taken off the bill. When I told the manager this, she told me she was not comping drinks and then proceeded to make said drinks and have me take them to the table. The people at the table told me they wouldn’t pay for the drinks. I did the math on their bill what the total was without the drinks and they gave me their cards to take payment. I had their cards in my possession for around 15-20 minutes. This is during the time I couldn’t get the attention of the bartender/manager to process the payment for me. I returned to the table to apologize for the delay. I explained the system wasn’t allowing me to take payments and I was waiting for the manager to process the payment on their bill. They then told me to give them their cards back and that they were leaving.

Borderline the exact same thing happened with the second table. Their bill was around $85 and they only received 2/4 of their drinks, 2 of which were just beer on draft that I wasn’t allowed to grab myself.

These were the only tables I had this problem with. I had several other tables during the night that paid in cash and didn’t need change so we didn’t have this conflict again or if they were paying by card, I immediately informed them the system wouldn’t allow me to take payment and they needed to go to the bar to close out their bill.

At the end of the night, the manager informed the owner of my walk outs and he told me I needed to pay for their bills. I told him that I wouldn’t do this because their walk outs were not my fault. Him and the manager were claiming that because I had the payment in my hand, I shouldn’t have given it back to the customer when they requested it.

After he told me this and left, I called my husband panicking because I don’t have the money to pay for this. We split tips and even though I know I made good tips from all my other tables, I didn’t think I would have over $200 in tips to cover it. I never signed anything when I was hired on stating this would be a requirement. I never signed anything period other than the tax documents. I was hired on with a training pay of $12/hr without tips for 3 days and then went to $2.13/hr plus tips.

After my husband heard what was going on, he called the police (for the record I didn’t want him to). When they showed up, they said they couldn’t do anything because it was a civil dispute. After hearing I had the payment but the customer asked for it back, they said the police should have been called then for larceny. The police essentially agreed with the manager and left.

I told the manager to let me know what the tips came out to and left. Around 30 minutes later, the owner sent me the following message which is a direct copy and paste: “You left tonight without closing out your tickets, and you owe us $159.40 from those open tickets. You can either bring the money in for those, or be arrested for theft. I will wait until Tuesday before I file charges.”

Can I actually be arrested for this? Based off this math, I would have only made $60 in tips which I know is not accurate. My husband researched local laws and it seems like they don’t have a leg to stand on. My best friend is also going to law school and she said the same but I am terrified.

This is just a part time job I was working to pay for groceries and gas because I’m a SAHM. I cannot get arrested and I can’t pay what he is asking me to pay. I quit as soon as he told me I needed to pay so that is taken care of.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long post.