Should I Report My Ex-employer For Keeping 90% Of My Tips?

[Location: Asheville, NC]

Context: My past employer is a new(ish)family owned business, a healthy grocery store and deli running on the premise of supporting the community and selling local products. I started working there the first week they were open and was there for about 6 months. It is one of the few jobs in this town that offer living wage.

So after I was hired they went over the employee handbook/rules about how our tip pool is split equally between every employee(including non customer facing kitchen staff)and claimed if labor cost percentage went above 25%, our tip pool would go towards paying everyone’s wages. I kept track of labor costs trying to make sense of it but they literally always were over 25% even with a skeleton crew so we never got the money.

They told us this is how they can afford to pay everyone a living wage, but if we don’t do our part in running the social media, upselling products, and “treating every customer like a family member” the less we get paid.

As one of 3 front of house staff I dealt with hundreds of customers every day and definitely received a large amount of tips, but never saw that money. They kept our cash tips and even said one time it’s not worth the effort to redistribute the cash to everyone working, even though most of the time I was the only one there most of the time.

I questioned the co-owner about it multiple times asking her to explain. All I managed to get was we would always get to keep at least 30% of our tips no matter what, but then changed it to 10% soon after. She told me the same info over and over then shared a bunch of inappropriate information about her personal life and financial situation.

They also fired me for bringing up concerns about mold in the building, as it flooded frequently and was legitimately making me quite sick. So I’m also considering reporting them to OSHA. So i’m a little scared of them retaliating even further for reporting anything.

[TLDR]

Employer kept nearly all of our tip pool, is that legal if I was getting paid living wage?

And should I report them to DOL for doing this?

I don’t expect to get anything out of that but it feels too scummy to simply let go.