Good Afternoon,
I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to all of you today to address a pressing concern regarding the state of businesses in West Hollywood.
As many of you know a number of businesses are facing imminent closure, one after the other. This dire situation is attributed to the recent increase in the minimum wage, which has risen from $17.64 to $19.08 within a span of just six months. To shed light on this critical issue, I have attached a brief video that focuses on three specific establishments: La Boheme, Marcos Restaurant, and Hollyway Cleaners, all of which are struggling to stay afloat. Regrettably, without a change in our current minimum wage policies, these businesses may find it impossible to survive.
The surviving businesses within our community are earnestly requesting the opportunity to engage in a study session. This session would allow us to have a direct and open dialogue with city officials, during which we can articulate the profound impact that the new minimum wage, as well as sick leave and paid time off policies, is having on small businesses and restaurants alike.
Mayor Pro Tempore Erickson has previously promised study sessions focusing on economic development, and we kindly urge him to fulfill this commitment. We believe that, with the cooperation of city staff, we can collectively collaborate as business owners to contribute to the betterment of our beloved city.
Warm regards,
Kayla Smith
Marketing, Public Relations, & Event Manager
Global Dining Inc of California
1212 3rd Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401
GLOBAL-DINING グローバルダイニング
isn’t that the way to accommodate businesses that charge higher prices so that they can afford to pay workers the new minimum wage?
That is why the prices are higher. You put the cart before the horse.
WeHo work
ing to further ‘up class’ itself. ‘Boystown’. (I hate that term) will b’come ‘rich boystown’… then: the new gay hub? Slverlake?
When a teenage burger flipper makes an inflated minimum wage working next to a manager with years of experience making virtually the same minimum wage, what ince time us there foe the burger flipper to better themselves with education? And no doubt the manager will resent someone just starting makes the same as the manager.
Oh, gee, I’m sure it’s the workers’ fault who want to earn a living wage. How about the greedy greedy commercial landlords who keep raising the rents? None of these business owners gripe about that. If you want to blame somebody for the pinch on these businesses, blame the greedy landlords because that means much higher numbers than the pittance these slave workers get. Not to mention, look at the standard of living of the average worker versus the standard of living of some of the owners of these businesses. Did the servers at the restaurants drive Mercedes? Do they… Read more »
Yes, they do. Most businesses have long term leases. As we have seen, when the lease is up, their rent goes up a lot, and the business folds.
the assumption ‘the rent goes up alot’, is a blanket statement that misses the context of many commercial leases which include.. no more than a x% increase on renewal, or renewal at 90% of fair market value or whatever the tenant negotiated, or in the case of todays market many rents have went down. The rent is only a small % of a commercial lease it is the labor that is the major cost in every business, unless your a gas station.
You seem like a very bitter and jealous person. People like you want everything for nothing. You don’t want to work you just want it handed to you for sitting on your lazy behind. I’m sure you’ll be the first to complain when the price of your drinks goes up. Are you that stupid that you don’t think many of these struggling businesses are owned by LGBTQ+ members of the community. You are really clueless.
First, minimum wage jobs were not and are not meant to be career jobs. Secondly, voting, matters. I didn’t vote for this regime and yet I am included in this nuttery. Third, I can afford all or any of this inflationary pricing and forced wages. I pity the people who cannot. Fourth, when market forces are not accepted as the natural order then communism is what it is called in my opinion. Enjoy your dystopian creation and stop complaining. Just pay the man. I do not care if these businesses listed fail or the workers move away or whatever. I’ll… Read more »
At 19.08, their salaries are only around $38,000 a year.
Quit griping, this argument is so ridiculous.
conflating hourly with salary is not fair. to be a salaried employee you must work more than 30 hours per week. so, if a person is hourly, and less than 30 hours,..they probably are working part time and have another full time job. so your argument that conflates hourly workers to a full salary, or income is a narrow perspective.
With the minimum California wage, I guess around $30,000 per year, they could live well in Baker, Barstow or Blythe. Not sure why these unskilled people think they have a God given right to live next to 90210. Will someone subsidize me to live in a mansion in Holmby Hills, or do we only reward unskilled people?
Do you want to perform any of the jobs that these “unskilled” people work?
Somebody has to do the job, now, don’t they.
Some people drive two hours +/- to work in the area.
Guess what, if they are good employees I am sure they will be rewarded and they will earn more than $19,08. No successful business is going to lose a great employee over a raise. The point is we should be letting businesses decide who to reward for doing a great job. Why should some mediocre employee be rewarded with these increases if they are not good employees? That just forces employers to fire the bad employees and dump more work on everyone else because they will have fewer people to do the same amount of work. If these people are… Read more »
And guess what I have learned: that when given the opportunity to do the right thing, corporations will always to the wrong thing.
That is what self-regulation allows.
It took you 12 days to respond to my comment? Tell that to all the people who are going to lose their jobs or who have already lost their jobs. Businesses will just maintain a similar payroll with less people. Less people doing more work. Most of these small businesses are already taxed to death so the choice is either charge their customers more for their products or services or have less people doing the work for the people who were let go. That is just the reality of survival if you are a small business in Weho. You complain… Read more »
You know not what you speak of….Mr Mean.
You’re the mean one, and of course just shooting off with no example of what you are referring to.
So, are these “unskilled people” supposed to drive in from Baker, Barstow or Blythe to wait on your table or check out your groceries? Get real. You wouldn’t last a day without these people.
And these people you refer to are supposed to commute to LA county from Baker, Barstow and Blythe every day to work here as we need them to?
Don’t forget to add the tips 3 times more that!!!
I find it hard to understand how so many can be against a minimum wage for workers, yet they want to limit what landords can earn with draconian rent control. Why not have a minimum rent landlords charge. You want it both ways. What hypocrits.
Who said they were against a minimum wage? Stop making things up. We already have a minimum wage. I’m against people with no business background creating the highest minimum wage in the country plus all kinds of extra benefits that most small businesses cannot afford. Let the market decide how much a business can afford to pay. If someone is unhappy with how much they are being paid they should ask for a raise or find another job. Believe me, if a business has a good employee they are going to compensate them. When you force businesses to raise wages… Read more »
Excellent summation of the situation.
If politicians really wanted to help working people they would lower gas taxes. The national average price of gas is around $4.00 yet we are over $5.50. That is more than $1.50 per gallon to fill their cars with gas. Progressives talk out of both sides of their mouths. Higher minimum wages sound great but that also means businesses either need to lay off people or charge their customers even more. Until we get a handle on our homeless problems and other problems we should stop passing laws that cost consumers and businesses more money that many simply do not… Read more »
Can Wehoville provide the history of West Hollywood’s minimum wage? (Similar to this state history chart) https://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/minimumwagehistory.htm
I’d like to see how it matches inflation and what % increase we’re averaging.
The minimum wage is for HS and college students. An entry wage to give the youth an opportunity to make a little pocket change.
But flooding the country with unskilled illegal migrants changed all of that and our country.
In the wonderful country of America, you are expected to attend and graduate high school and college while working crap jobs knowing that you aren’t going to be stuck in them forever. And then your education and hard work leads to an esteemable career. This is the trajectory that life is supposed to take. The logical unwritten rules of life don’t need to be changed. There’s everything wrong with paying adults $20 and benefits to flip burgers.
So, the woke went from minimum wage to a living wage. Not the purpose of either. Minimum wage was created as either a steppingstone to a more prosperous future, a bridge to better living. But somehow, a minimum wage changed to a living wage. What does that mean, one should obtain a living wage to buy a home while changing sheets or serving food? No shame in honest work BUT these are low skill experience jobs that help people get on a path to success and living. That a legislative body as West Hollywood City Council thinks this will better… Read more »
“What does that mean, one should obtain a living wage to buy a home while changing sheets or serving food? “
Are you purposefully being obtuse? Or do you actually not know that $19/hr doesn’t even come CLOSE to buying any property in California (or most other states actually). That is under $40k a year and you think these people are living some luxurious life here in California.
You need a reality check.
You completely missed her point!
You’re so lost.
Nope. Ham, you are lost. You don’t even live here.
She is 100% correct. It’s a wage for HS students working at a pizza restaurant. No one was ever intended to live off it.
Live off it? These people aren’t buying property with $20/hr. They can barely afford to rent a 2 bedroom with someone else. You don’t think someone should be able to LIVE with the job they have?
The minimum wage is not just for students working at a pizza restaurant lol. It applies to most retail workers, front desk workers, gym employees, restaurant workers etc.
Do you have any life experience?
For someone who uses the name “voting,” it would be great if you would have been taught American history. “From the beginning, the minimum wage was meant to be a living wage—meaning families could live off of the pay comfortably, rather than struggling paycheck-to-paycheck. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a major proponent of the living wage, saying that “by living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of a decent living.” With this idea, a family that earned minimum wage could not only cover the costs of food and shelter but also save for emergencies… Read more »
Roosevelt was a racist, power hungry, opportunist who said what he had to to get votes. Just because he said it doesn’t mean it was valid and not worthy of debate.
Complete ad hominem here regarding the original establishment and intent of the minimum wage. Go on, off you go.
You’re not worth the effort, C.R.
You don’t listen to learn …. you listen to reply,
so you’re wasting my time.
Nothing is going to change your mind, no matter how compelling the evidence, because you’re emotionally vested in your ideology and so are incapable of considering anything other than what you already believe.
“There are more than 550,000 fast-food workers at 30,000 locations statewide, Newsom said. The majority are the primary providers for their families – contrary to the perception that fast-food workers are teenagers in their first jobs – while 80% are minorities and two-thirds are women, he added.”
And therein lies the problem! Low-skilled, mostly immigrants, taking the jobs that were once the first job for teenagers and for students who needed flexible hours.
Wages should be determined by the worth of the job, not the financial obligations of the employee. Imagine in an interview the business owner asking the potential new hire how much his rent is and how many children he is supporting and then negotiating what the wage will be!
You’re the one that is obtuse, Greeney. If you think that $20 an hour is reasonable to pay burger flippers, well, then that’s certainly a special now low even for you.
I guarantee you most of California agrees with me. Thats why our elected officials signed it into law!
The woke are moving to create a living wage floor that cripples small businesses while cheerleading a mind-boggling unprecedented wave of illegal immigration – 6 million in 30 months – mostly military aged males – that will set every current service industry worker in the US in a vicious fight for employment.
Particularly brutal when Biden grants them all amnesty and the dog eat dog nature of the remaining employers – too big too fail corporations – can pick and choose their workforce – certainly not union oriented millenials or zoomers.
“In my Inaugural, I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.… Read more »
Ok – we raise the minimum wage to the point where small businesses cant sustain and the market driven replacement is globocorp economy – notoriouslyterrible at filling in niche local needs. Then we flood the job market with military aged males who will undercut competitors who have (from a corporate perspective) unreasonable demands regarding rights/benefits/working conditions. How does this play out long term?
Here we go with FDR again, as if anything he said is from the mouth of the Almighty!
FDR was very wrong about a LOT of things!
Not as wrong as you have been repeatedly, citing the minimum wage’s original intent being for high school students. There’s no reason to ever see that here again from you, if you have any integrity at all, since you have been corrected with historical references.
You have offered nothing in this discussion other than that you don’t like what I say. I addressed your “historical references” and I said far more about the intent of the minimum wage than that it was intended for high school students. You are so emotionally vested in your ideology you can’t handle any perceived threat to it.
If small business don’t want to pay people a livable wage…my suggestion is do the work yourself…
Yes – they will or they’ll close. Is that a winning strategy for the job market and broader economy?
It is a paradox. Part of that paradox is that there is higher wages but a smaller work force; employers are paying more to attract quality people. Plenty of people my age going into retail to supplement their retirement. Texas is having problems filling up buses to LA as even immigrants are aware of our absurd housing costs; they want to go to Denver or Chicago. It should be noted that the State of California balked at mandating major increases in sick days due to the impact on job creation. West Hollywood should take note.
Low-wage people (immigrants) get subsidized housing so they don’t pay the market rate.
Germany needed workers so Chancellor Merkel brought in immigrants to do those jobs, only to find once they got there, they wouldn’t work! They were living well enough off the government dole, so why work?
What are your sources?
I read and I listen. Do your own homework if you care enough to, or just dismiss me if you know you’re not going to change your mind no matter how compelling the evidence to the contrary.
I just came across this from an article on the many reasons for the fall of the Roman empire:
“The government’s increased intervention in the economy, including high taxes, price controls, and inflation, which were a direct result of the populace’s demand for wealth redistribution and a central government to administer it, were the main causes of Rome’s decline and ultimate destruction.”
As I said, I read!
What the hell kind of translation is that?? That’s such crap. What ultra-Right book spouts that crap!?
Why does this bother you so much?
Looks like it doesn’t take much to set you off.
You do a great job talking out of your ass. Can you make it sing, too? Fart a little bit of “Dixie”, will ya? How about some “Melancholy Baby”? That is one talented hole!
Do you have a counter for this position?
No, I didn’t think so.
When people start name-calling that means they have no response which means ….. I win!