A freshly glazed Shipley doughnut might be as close as Houston comes to heaven on earth, so it feels like a particular sin to see the family-owned chain serving up a box of assorted scandal.

The latest sign that something is terribly amiss at Shipley Do-Nuts came last week when the Chronicle’s Robert Downen reported that three former female employees of the Houston-based doughnut chain had filed suit against its owner, Lawrence Shipley III, alleging Shipley regularly groped them and made unwelcome sexual comments.

The claims that Shipley ogled and spanked these women — though they have yet to be proven — are appalling in and of themselves. But when tacked onto the list of incidents of employee mistreatment over the past dozen years, the latest complaint fits into a pattern of troubling management by the company’s owners.

It is well past time that Shipley gets its act together. If not, the company, which has grown to hundreds of locations since its founding in Houston by Lawrence III’s grandfather in 1936, risks pushing its customers away and losing its cherished spot in Houston’s culinary pantheon.

Reporter Mark Collette recapped the company’s recent troubles: In 2006, 15 workers said they were locked into the North Main Street factory during work hours, where they were groped, punched, kicked, threatened with guns and routinely called racial slurs. Shipley settled the suit in 2008, but that same year the company paid a $1.5 million fine for harboring undocumented immigrants, and Lawrence Shipley pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

A Shipley franchise owner in 2015 paid $45,000 to settle a complaint that pregnant employees were forced to go on unpaid leave. And just last year, four former employees sued the company, alleging they worked unpaid overtime.

What is clear by now is Shipley management has at many times taken advantage of its employees. And contrition does not appear to be the company’s strong suit — Lawrence Shipley called the women in the latest suit “low lifes” making a “pathetic, baseless accusation,” and alleged the women had defrauded the company. Never mind that one of the plaintiffs says Shipley himself locked her in one of the company-owned homes on North Main and patrolled the property with a gun.

These aren’t the kind of working conditions Houstonians should want to see in our hometown doughnut shop.

A company with managers who call employees “wetbacks,” as workers alleged in the settled 2006 suit and claim in the most recent case, is a black eye to a city that celebrates its diversity. More episodes of employees coming forward with accounts of being humiliated at their jobs only show that the company’s management is incongruent with Houston values.

Shipley should be lauded for its philanthropy, like the Do-Nuts Dash, its annual charity run for children’s meals. But that does not relieve the company of its responsibility to be an honest employer.

Shipley needs to demonstrate it can follow labor laws and treat its employees fairly. If it fails to do so, Houstonians aren’t exactly lacking other local chains — ones that can serve up doughnuts, kolaches and coffee without a side of scandal.