The most controversial ordinance on this year’s municipal ballot, an initiative that would force most businesses to give employees nine days of annual paid sick leave, is dividing the city’s restaurant industry, pitting most of the servers and cooks against the employers who sign their paychecks.
And as many restaurant owners gathered Monday morning to voice their opposition to Initiative 300, the Bell Policy Center, a liberal think tank, released a study concluding that the business community’s concerns are overblown.
“We are convinced a paid sick leave law will greatly benefit workers and their families as well as overall public health,” said Wade Buchanan, Bell’s president, in a press release. “And we are confident it can be implemented with little harm to businesses.”
But many restaurant owners, who rallied in Skyline Park Monday morning, implored voters to look deeper and to realize that they should be allowed to run their businesses how they — not those at City Hall — see fit.