‘Absurd’: Gavin Newsom hits back over Panera wage-exemption puzzle

Gavin Newsom is hitting back at a news report that he pushed for an exception to the state’s new fast-food minimum wage law that benefits a wealthy campaign donor.

California’s minimum wage is $16 per hour. But starting on 1 April, most fast-food restaurants in the state must pay their workers at least $20 an hour under legislation Newsom signed last year. However, the law does not apply to restaurants that have on-site bakeries and sell bread as a standalone menu item.

That exception puzzled some industry watchers, and was never fully explained by Newsom or other supporters of the law. Then on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that the exemption was linked to opposition from the Panera Bread franchisee Greg Flynn, whose company owns 24 of the restaurants in California and has donated to Newsom’s campaigns.

“This story is absurd,” the California governor’s spokesman, Alex Stack, said on Thursday.

Stack said that the governor’s legal team believes Panera Bread is not exempt from the law. They said that to be exempt from the minimum wage law as a bakery, restaurants must produce bread for sale on site. The governor’s office said many chain bakeries, such as Panera Bread, mix dough at a centralized off-site location and then ship that dough to the restaurant for baking and sale.

Since last year, Panera Bread has been reported as a restaurant exempt from the law and Newsom’s office has not said otherwise, even when the governor was directly asked why the chain was exempt.

A message left with Panera Bread about their baking process was not immediately returned.

Stack said the governor never met with Flynn about the law. A message left with the Flynn Group was not returned on Thursday. Flynn told Bloomberg he did not play a role in