Mar 19
2025
More subsidies for restaurateur accused of wage theft
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A Niagara Falls restaurateur under investigation for allegations of wage theft received a third round of tax breaks Wednesday.
With little discussion, the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency unanimously approved $51,000 in sales tax breaks for Muhammad Shoaib to open a Church’s Chicken, Jamba Juice and Carvel Ice Cream in downtown Niagara Falls.
Meanwhile, five former employees, three of them managers, have come forward with new allegations that Shoaib and his wife, Hina Qureshi, failed to pay overtime and withheld tips from their workers. They told Investigative Post the couple altered payroll entries and told employees to destroy records and to lie to state Department of Labor investigators who are looking into the allegations of wage theft.
The mandate from the owners, according to the managers: Keep labor costs down.
“[Qureshi] said specifically to me, ‘No one gets overtime. I don’t want no one getting overtime. I’m not paying anyone for overtime,’” said one of the former employees, a manager. “[She said it] exactly like that, verbatim, those three ways, back to back, word for word.”
All five of the former employees further alleged Shoaib and Qureshi refused to distribute tips that customers left via credit card. Qureshi, one said, asserted workers got enough tips via cash.
“You could tell her it’s illegal until you’re blue in the face and she doesn’t care,” the person said.
Investigative Post first reported on similar allegations made by 10 current and former employees in January. Two weeks later, labor department investigators showed up at some of the nine restaurants Shoaib and Qureshi own.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThe response from the owners was twofold: Employees were told to sign non-disclosure agreements and managers were instructed to alter, withhold or destroy certain records before state investigators arrived.
“No one should go over 40 hours in schedule. Hurry up. Make new,” Qureshi instructed several managers in a group text message on Feb. 6 obtained by Investigative Post.
Her son, Yusef, then responded: “They are looking for schedules. Get rid of them.”
Qureshi issued further instructions for the managers to relay to employees: “Tell them to say all good.”
According to schedules seen by Investigative Post, some employees were slated to work overtime without receiving additional pay. The week of Christmas 2024, for example, one hourly employee was scheduled to work 12-hour shifts, seven days in a row at one of the Papa John’s in Niagara Falls. Another was scheduled to work 57 hours over the seven days.
A labor department spokesperson declined to comment on the probe.
Shoaib did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story. Matthew Miller, his attorney, told Investigative Post that he would not comment or make Shoaib available for an interview. Qureshi, reached by phone Tuesday, told a reporter she was unable to talk and to call back later. She did not return subsequent phone calls.
IDA Chairman Mark Onesi said after Wednesday’s meeting that his agency continues to subsidize Shoaib’s businesses because they keep tourists on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls.
The labor department’s investigation, he said, “is not our business. We’re not investigators.”
“[The employees] are not being stolen from unless somebody says, an authority, that they’re being stolen from,” he added.
Altering records to withhold pay
To avoid paying overtime, the three former managers who spoke to Investigative Post said Qureshi would alter payroll records after managers submitted them.
In some cases, the former employees said, Qureshi would change a worker’s status from hourly to salaried if they worked more than 40 hours in a week. If they worked fewer than 40 hours in a subsequent week, Qureshi would change their status back to hourly. Salaried managers, too, would be changed to hourly employees if they worked fewer than 50 hours in a week in order to reduce their pay.
According to state labor law, all hourly workers must be paid an overtime rate if they work more than 40 hours in a week. The same applies to salaried workers if their weekly salary is under $1,161.65.
One former manager said they questioned Qureshi on her practice of changing the payroll records, arguing that the money saved would be negligible compared to possible fines for violating the law.
“I don’t understand why they were doing it,” the person said. “The amount of money you’re saving right now is peanuts to what’s going to happen.”
All five of the former employees said Shoaib and Qureshi withheld tips left via credit card at some of the restaurants. Cash tips were distributed after each shift, the employees said, but not those left digitally.
Robert Garris started working for Shoaib and Qureshi at a Papa John’s in Buffalo and said at that store all tips were distributed to the employees, cash and credit alike. When he transferred to a Papa John’s in Niagara Falls, he said he continued the practice. Shoaib and his wife suddenly accused him of theft, he said.
“They made this big, big problem about me taking the [credit card] tips, telling me, ‘No, no, no, you’re not supposed to take those. You’re technically stealing from us,’” Garris said.
One day, he said, “There was like $70 in tips on the till, and I didn’t get a single dollar of it.”
Upset, Garris said he called the Papa John’s corporate office but never heard back.
Three of the former employees who spoke to Investigative Post described other issues, too: Some South Asian employees were paid less than the minimum wage.
Some of those workers, the former employees said, were paid a weekly salary but required to work overtime.
“Sometimes, some of them wind up getting $9 an hour,” one of the employees said.
The minimum wage in Western New York is $15.50 per hour.
The two employees scheduled for overtime the week of Christmas were both of South Asian descent. They were paid either a salary or an hourly wage to avoid earning overtime pay.
Ed Barnett, a former Papa John’s manager, said he discovered one hourly employee in his store was earning just $12 per hour when he began examining payroll records more closely and raising issues with Shoaib and Qureshi. He quit his job in the fall after Qureshi declined to address pay issues he had raised.
“They are well underpaid,” Barnett said of some of the South Asian workers Shoaib and Qureshi employ. “They get paid less than minimum wage.”
Shoaib’s latest subsidies
The IDA on Wednesday approved another round of tax breaks despite the allegations from current and former employees and the labor department’s investigation. He’s previously received $782,000 in tax breaks and grants from the IDA and City of Niagara Falls. Those funds allowed him to open the Moe’s Southwest Grill and A&W on Rainbow Boulevard and to begin renovating another downtown building into a food court.
Shoaib’s latest subsidies include $27,000 in sales tax abatements to open a Jamba Juice and Carvel ice cream stand in the Wingate hotel on Rainbow Boulevard. That’s the same building where he opened the Moe’s.
The package also includes $24,000 in sales tax abatements for a Church’s Chicken to be located within the Hyatt Place hotel on Rainbow Boulevard.
Together, Shoaib’s projects are slated to cost $870,000. He’s told the IDA between the three stores he plans to hire 30 people earning $35,000 to $65,000 annually.
The IDA will earn an estimated fee of $10,700, based on the total cost of the projects.
