A Wetherspoon pub manager was sacked after allowing a staff member to receive a 50 per cent discount on certain food and non-alcoholic beverages. Peter Castagna-Davies, who had been with Wetherspoon for over two decades, has now triumphed in an employment tribunal following his dismissal from his position as a shift leader.
Mr Castagna-Davies was let go from the Pontlottyn pub in Abertillery after he rang up two portions of halloumi fries, two servings of chicken breast bites, and two cans of Monster energy drink for kitchen worker Noah Gardiner, applying a half-price discount for shift staff, according to WalesOnline.
An internal probe determined that he had violated policy by permitting Mr Gardiner to purchase “excessive products” at the 50 per cent rate and take the food home. The tribunal was informed that Mr Castagna-Davies was unaware that just two minutes prior to approving the items, Mr Gardiner had used a different manager’s till key to process another complimentary meal for himself – chicken breast bites and a can of Monster Punch.
Wetherspoon’s disciplinary chairman Chris Jenkins made the decision to dismiss Mr Castagna-Davies, informing him: “Shortly before you processed Noah’s 50 per cent on-shift discount he had processed through the till his own staff feeding meal, some two hours after his break when he had consumed it, which you had no knowledge of him doing so or even going on his break.
“I find this both worrying and surprising that, as the duty manager with so few staff to manage on the shift in question, you had no knowledge or control over what was going on,” reports Chronicle Live.
The pub’s regulations specified that, during a shift, one item from the food menu and one soft drink were provided free of charge to staff members. Workers wanting to add additional items could buy them at half price and if they wished to take food home the reduction would be 20 per cent.
Pontlottyn manager Sarah Newton had sent a message to the pub’s employee group chat stating the company was “cracking down” because workers at other establishments had taken multiple 50 per cent orders home.
During the tribunal, Wetherspoon witnesses testified there had been “a crackdown on the 50 per cent discount because staff had been caught taking food home to feed their whole family”.
They alleged the business had experienced “significant” costs, which prompted it to adopt a “corporate zero-tolerance attitude towards abuse of the staff discount”.
An investigating manager, Keri Blanchard, questioned Mr Gardiner, who confessed he had taken home the items processed by Mr Castagna-Davies. Mr Castagna-Davies refuted being aware Mr Gardiner intended to take the food home. Mr Jenkins sacked him without notice.
Despite recognising Mr Castagna-Davies’ unblemished disciplinary record over 22 years, he highlighted that Wetherspoon had been “vigorous” in communicating its zero-tolerance approach. In his appeal, Mr Castagna-Davies claimed that Mr Gardiner “had ordered the food in a deceptive way”.
However, Wetherspoon area manager Dannie Stephens countered he had “failed to lead, manage and organise your shift sufficiently to prevent the breach”.
At the tribunal, Judge Rachel Harfield stated it was not reasonable for Ms Stephens to conclude this was a case of “gross incompetence or gross negligence, as opposed to being simple negligence that falls within the misconduct category of the respondent’s policy”.
The judge further added: “There is no evidence that Dannie Stephens gave any thought to that at all. She seems simply to have operated on the basis that the claimant should have managed the shift better, that if he had done so the breach would not have happened, therefore the claimant should be held responsible for the breach, and it was possible under the policy to dismiss for a single act.
“There was no weighing of the actual seriousness of the claimant’s actions in their actual context. Dannie Stephens seemed to have viewed the claimant as diligent in other areas. It was one incident on one shift that he could have managed better. He was an employee with long service and a clear disciplinary record. The decision to uphold the dismissal at appeal stage was not within the reasonable range. In my judgement that rendered the whole dismissal unfair.”
Judge Harfield urged the parties to attempt a settlement before a remedy hearing takes place.
Get all the latest and breaking news in Yorkshire by signing up to our newsletter here.