We clearly understand that restaurateurs are busy managing their business. They do not have the time to follow each piece of proposed legislation, meet with legislators to educate the legislator to the impact on their restaurant for each piece of legislation, and follow the legislation through committee, full Board or Assembly, to Mayor or Governor signature. Once legislation is passed, we publish through newsletter and web posting the requirements of the legislation, often with options and referrals to simplify implementation.

In today's political world legislation may take months to years to go from proposal to completed legislation.

Detailed Examples:

San Francisco Healthcare Security Ordinance(Employer Mandate for Healthcare)
We first met with Supervisor Ammiano and Mayor Newsom in September, 2005. Through the political process the GGRA participated in 18 public hearings, met with supervisors, mayor and mayoral staff, labor and healthcare advocates numerous times, and served on the Universal Healthcare Council. Our message was clear and consistent: the reform should make healthcare affordable. Unfortunately the employer mandate is not affordable for our members or industry, especially if and when the City brings the current spending requirement up to the non-capped rate specified in the ordinance. The effective date of that adjustment is stated as 2010 in the ordinance. Fortunately the City has decided not to raise the expense to that level until at least 2011. In October 2009 we are waiting to hear if the United States Supreme Court will hear our legal challenge of the spending requirement. We have won a verdict in Federal Court, and lost an appeal in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. If we are accepted by the US Supreme Court, and win our case in spring, 2010, a period of almost 5 years will have been spent from original proposal to completed legal process. Certainly the restaurateur by him or herself could not dedicate the time or resources for this representation.

Nutrition Labeling
In this case both state and local laws were proposed over a short period of time. On the state level Senator Alex Padilla introduced AB120 which required written nutrition information on all menus for similar restaurants with 9 or more locations. The nutrition information required laboratory testing, at a cost of $700 or more per menu item. The GGRA communicated regularly with the California Restaurant Association over the proposed legislation. The GGRA worked with Senator Padilla's staff, in addition to Assembly members Fiona Ma and Mark Leno, to modify the legislation. Computer data is now an alternative to lab testing, hugely reducing the cost of nutrition evaluation to impacted restaurants. The number of similar restaurants to trigger the nutrition labeling was increased from 9 to 15, a positive improvement but well short of the 25 restaurants the GGRA pursued. The GGRA also argued both locally and in Sacramento that the legislation should require calories only, certainly the most understood measurement of health in food by the consumer. The bill, which required several nutrition listings, was eventually vetoed by the Governor in 2007.

In 2009, Senator Padilla introduced SB1420. This legislation changed the number of similar restaurants required to trigger the nutrition labeling to 20. The requirement for many restaurants is calories only, with a start date of January, 2011. The CRA supported the legislation, which the governor eventually signed into law. One of the positive items in the legislation is the state standard for nutrition labeling clearly states it replaces any local ordinances, setting the same business standard throughout the state. Again from original proposal to implementation a period of over 4 years elapsed.

Recent Measures

2006 San Francisco Sick Pay Ballot Measure
Negotiated reasonable notification clause, and Paid Time Off to meet standard for Sick Pay. PTO gives maximum flexibility to employee to maximize utility of their sick pay/vacation pay/personal time and benefited restaurants by valuing the monies they already spent on vacation pay for their employees (which is now defined as PTO). It should be noted that sick pay legislation is happening all over the country, with PTO meeting the standard for sick pay.

2007 Styrofoam Ban
GGRA endorsed the ban proposed by Supervisor Aaron Peskin. GGRA proposed an affordability clause for disposable serviceware. The clause did not require restaurants to buy disposable silverware until the cost of disposable is within 15% of the cost on non-disposable. A short term economic hardship was avoided, and a market was created for a company to bring affordable disposable silverware to market as they will start with 4000 restaurant clients.

2007 Bay Area Air Quality Management District
GGRA worked with BAAQMD to consider filter size (HEPA) as an alternative to requiring smog hogs for restaurants that triggered the requirement. In September, 2007 the BAAQMD Board voted down the original requirement, and later adopted a more flexible requirement triggered by restaurants with 10 or more square feet of grill, and who cooked 800 or more pounds of beef on a weekly basis.

2009 Supervisor Daly Smoking Ban
GGRA worked to remove personal enforcement clause, which required restaurant to ask patrons and non-patrons on the sidewalk in front of their business to stop smoking. Clearly the clause represented a health concern for the employee leaving the building to ask someone on the sidewalk to quit smoking, as well as a liability concern for the restaurant itself. With the assistance of Supervisor David Chiu the clause was modified to remove our concern.

Eye on the Future

We are currently monitoring efforts to tax alcohol, increase immigration enforcement through business rather than policy and border control, and increase sales tax and gross receipts tax. We have lobbied for flexibility in the California meal breaks law, an effort partially reduced in importance through recent court cases which have sided with the employer making the break available rather than having to guarantee and document each break. Again, the newsletter and website are utilized to communicate recent rulings to the restaurants members.

In our political advocacy, we work to create clean and safe locations for our members to do business. We try to limit taxes and fees in creating a positive business environment. We advocate to pass, modify or oppose legislation based upon the merit of each individual piece of legislation. We work to educate our public officials on the impact of proposed legislation to our industry, and often recommend modifications that allow the intent of the legislation while minimizing the negative impact on the restaurant community.