Labor
Ballot blockade: California industries rely on referenda to stop laws
CalMatters 12/12
For a reported cost of just more than $4 million, California’s fast food industry may have bought itself a two-year reprieve from one of the most contentious state labor laws in recent memory.
The Unhappy Meals a council would create
Daily Breeze 12/9
If you were running a business today — tough enough as that is in this time of economic turmoil, relatively high inflation, rising wages, hard-to-find workers, regulations old and new, supply-chain problems, not to mention the normal entrepreneurial matter of attracting enough customers to keep the doors open — do you imagine you would welcome the prospect of a statewide government-appointed board of outsiders that got to review your employees’ pay and schedules and force you to change them if its members didn’t like them?
Food Industry Policy
Napa, Marin, Sonoma counties retain pandemic-era ‘parklets’ as permanent fixtures
A symbolic green light to pandemic recovery, Main Street in Napa between Second and Third streets is busy again. But this time — vehicles dominate the road.
Senators look to establish a tax credit for restaurants left out of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund
NRN 12/9
While a second round of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund was never passed in Congress, one of the authors of the original legislation is fighting for a tax credit that would give a much-needed boost to restaurants that lost out the first time around.
On the Side
Meet 10 of the Bay Area’s most exciting restaurants opening this winter
San Francisco Chronicle 12/12
2023 is shaping up to be a promising year for the Bay Area dining scene.
18 great outdoor L.A. dining options from the 2022 101 guide
Los Angeles Times 12/10
Our annual mega-project is live! The official title is “101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles,” though the guide occasionally looks farther afield to include communities such as Anaheim’s newly officially designated Little Arabia district and the delicious density of Vietnamese restaurants in Orange County’s Little Saigon — to celebrate the vastness of our region’s dining culture.