The Good, the Bad Sides of $15 Wage

First in a series. 

Now that a $15 minimum wage is within seeing distance of California business owners, how does a prosperous Downtown restaurateur respond?

One believes the prospective law will spawn an earth-jiggling fallout that will rewrite tradition in the restaurant business.

“The idea of tipping, I think, over the next five years will go away,” predicts Ken Kaufman.

Stepping back from the scales of fairness and balance, Mr. Kaufman said that “on the one hand it is good because local municipalities like Culver City will just sit tight. They will anot do anything. They will feel comfortable with the idea that the state has made a decision.”

The owner of Rush Street and City Tavern said he had just spoken with City Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells. She assured Mr. Kaufman that when the state makes a new minimum wage law official in a few hours, Culver City “is not going to do anything” further. “And she would be the one pushing for it,” he said.

On Jan. 1, the California minimum will rise from $10 to $10.50. Thereafter the wage floor will rise one dollar a year until 2022.

“The bad part,” said Mr. Kaufman, “is that it was inevitable this would happen. But because California is one of only seven states that does not have a bifurcated minimum wage for tipped workers and non-tipped workers, it just means restaurant workers – specifically front-of-the-house workers – are going to be paid much more money. And they don’t even want it.

“We also will have to change the model of restaurants because of this law,” said Mr. Kaufman.

The idea of tipping will go away, he forecasts. It will be replaced by a service charge or by imitating the European model: “Everything will be included in the price.”

(To be continued)