Bruttles Workers Are Bitter Candy Company Employees Laid Off Without Being Paid

A Spokane Valley candy company that employed a high percentage of minors and the disabled has halted production, throwing as many as 35 people out of work without pay.

Employees of Bernie’s Bruttles were dispersed by police Monday afternoon after owner Bernice Gutknecht said she did not have the money to pay them and locked herself in her office.

Employees, who are owed up to $1,400 each, said they had worked for more than a month on Gutknecht’s promise that she would pay them Monday.

Fearing the worst, employees tracked down Gutknecht at NorthTown Mall and confronted her. She fled to the factory, 10014 E. Montgomery Drive, and locked herself inside. When employees refused to leave the parking area, Gutknecht or a friend called the police, employees who were at the site said.

Gutknecht, a Davenport, Wash., businesswoman who was mired in personal bankruptcy when she took over the former Bruttles Northwest in September, promised that the company will not go out of business. She said she plans to pay former employees from sales of candy at her kiosk at NorthTown Mall.

“I needed to shut down the factory, but people don’t understand that,” Gutknecht said. “All that I have done was within my legal rights. My intentions are to pay these people.”

But employees are doubtful they’ll see their money. Karla Reiner, who managed Bruttles’ NorthTown kiosk before being laid off, said it’s unrealistic to think workers will get paid since the store keeps only $4,000 in inventory.

“She doesn’t have the money,” moaned Reiner, who says her car will be repossessed this week unless she is paid.

Bruttles manufactures premium caramels, peanut brittle and bruttles, a chocolate-dipped cashew and peanut brittle square. Most of the company’s cooking, decorating, wrapping and shipping was done by hand.

Gutknecht declined to say how many people have not been paid or how much. She said, “There’s no way I had 35 employees.”

But Reiner and others who had been with Gutknecht from the beginning counted 35 workers, half of whom were either under 18 or physically handicapped.

High school senior Troy Holder was one. He fears he has lost the $539 he earned and the chance to put money down for his first apartment.

“A lot of the kids don’t have parents, don’t have homes,” Reiner said. “For some, it was their first job.”

Gutknecht took over Bruttles under an arrangement with the company’s previous owner, Northwest Capital and Advisory Services Inc. Northwest Capital is a wholly owned subsidiary of Empire Financial Group in Spokane, which took possession of Bruttles after it declared bankruptcy in 1993.

Dave Taisey, president of Empire Financial, said he turned the company over to Gutknecht in exchange for a percentage of sales. But after two months of operations, Gutknecht has yet to make a payment.

“I don’t know what happened,” Taisey said. “We have not received a penny.”

Taisey said Gutknecht told him last week that candy sales had not met expectations. Gutknecht has 90 days to decide whether she will continue operating the company or return it to Northwest Capital, Taisey said.

, DataTimes