Quote Quoting Pancake18
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My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: North Carolina

Ok so I work in a restaurant and whenever a mistake is made (wrong button pressed, customer returns food, walk out, customer claims food is missing etc) the employee is forced to pay for it.

When I say pay for it I do not mean that it is deducted from their wages or their tips I mean that before they are allowed to leave work they have to "purchase" the food/materials that were wasted and check out like a normal customer. Is this legal?

I know that docking pay to below minimum wage is illegal. However I feel that this is in a grey area where I'm not exactly sure of what my rights are since it's not docking pay but rather being forced to spend your money at your job.
Its no different than docking pay in theory, whether or not it would be considered to be docking pay in practice is something better determined by your state department of labor. I would definitely make a complaint with them and see what happens. In the meantime, its time to start looking for another job, because you really do not want to keep working for an employer like that.