California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

storewanderer
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California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by storewanderer »

Panera appears to have done some fantastic lobbying on this and managed to exclude itself from this bill. Any chain that sells bread for at home consumption and also for sandwich use will be excluded.

I connect Panera because I think they are the only fast food chain who has over 100 locations in CA who sells bread for at home consumption and for sandwich use. Places like 85C would go under this too but they have far fewer locations.

I wonder if McDonalds etc. could put up a display of prepackaged hamburger buns for sale and then also be "excluded." Or perhaps they would need to add loaves of bread; I'm sure that wouldn't be too difficult. Also what about donut chains? Donuts are like a frosted bread...?
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: September 11th, 2022, 12:57 am
I wonder if McDonalds etc. could put up a display of prepackaged hamburger buns for sale and then also be "excluded." Or perhaps they would need to add loaves of bread; I'm sure that wouldn't be too difficult. Also what about donut chains? Donuts are like a frosted bread...?
McDonalds selling hamburger buns isn’t a far fetched idea. They sell their coffee in grocery stores as well as limited runs of Big Mac sauce, and they sell bags of ice (almost never advertised) in store.
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by babs »

pseudo3d wrote: September 11th, 2022, 7:24 am
storewanderer wrote: September 11th, 2022, 12:57 am
I wonder if McDonalds etc. could put up a display of prepackaged hamburger buns for sale and then also be "excluded." Or perhaps they would need to add loaves of bread; I'm sure that wouldn't be too difficult. Also what about donut chains? Donuts are like a frosted bread...?

McDonalds selling hamburger buns isn’t a far fetched idea. They sell their coffee in grocery stores as well as limited runs of Big Mac sauce, and they sell bags of ice (almost never advertised) in store.
Would the McCafe coffee sold in retail still qualify if it's nothing more than a licensing deal and is nowhere close to the coffee sold in their restaurants?
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: September 11th, 2022, 8:32 am
pseudo3d wrote: September 11th, 2022, 7:24 am
storewanderer wrote: September 11th, 2022, 12:57 am
I wonder if McDonalds etc. could put up a display of prepackaged hamburger buns for sale and then also be "excluded." Or perhaps they would need to add loaves of bread; I'm sure that wouldn't be too difficult. Also what about donut chains? Donuts are like a frosted bread...?

McDonalds selling hamburger buns isn’t a far fetched idea. They sell their coffee in grocery stores as well as limited runs of Big Mac sauce, and they sell bags of ice (almost never advertised) in store.
Would the McCafe coffee sold in retail still qualify if it's nothing more than a licensing deal and is nowhere close to the coffee sold in their restaurants?
I don't see how that would qualify.

But "baking off" frozen loaves of bread like Panera does obviously qualifies. McDonalds would need to make some changes but they have the ovens with the cookies/pies they could throw some frozen bread into and sell some form of bread.

Also why is this targeting fast food only? Why doesn't this target all chain restaurants? They all operate the same way. Too many optics.

Carl's Jr. already was advertising "fresh baked buns" - not sure if they still do that, on their Thickburgers. So they just need to bag up some bags of buns and throw a rack on the counter and that will handle this issue. I hope whatever union represents the bread plants doesn't get upset about all of this new potential competition thanks to the creators of the FAST ACT, for prepackaged bread.
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by ClownLoach »

Fuddruckers used to sell their hamburger buns. Back in the day when that chain had consistency they were probably the best hamburger bun you could find. I would visit my local one on the way home from work and grab a bag of buns then take them home and grill up my own burgers in the backyard.

I suspect that we will see this loophole thoroughly exploited all over the state and fast. The definition of bread for home consumption is really loose. How fast do you think In-N-Out could get their partners at Puritan Bakery to make some retail packaging for their buns and put a small rack in the stores? (Which, by the way, are made by different bakeries outside of the California market - the sponge bread recipe from Puritan is unique and not replicated well elsewhere. Salem, OR was using Franz and I don't know what they use in Dallas but it is too soft and reminded me of cheap grocery store house brand buns). Chick-fil-a sells their biscuits in the morning and offers a 6 pack of them. Would they qualify?

All of these state and local regulations around the fast food industry are being roundly ignored. LA locations of In-N-Out have posted the mandatory signage but so far I have not seen anyone following the rules at the restaurants. Supposedly the maximum daily fine is $250 so it just becomes another tax passed along to the customer because the labor cost in decreased transaction speed is more expensive than the fine. Not to mention the environmental impact of longer car idle times as wait times skyrocket and you can see that the law is a complete and total failure before it ever got off the ground. And let's face it the extra time in line at high volume locations could be significant if they have to keep stopping and asking the customer ten different questions would make the line so long it would wrap around the block. Such delays would cause many customers to say "forget it" and go to the competition where lines are shorter. The LA locations of In-N-Out have already raised their prices to pay the fines. A Double-Double was 20 cents higher in LA County last week than the price in Orange and Riverside counties. Clearly these laws just cost the customer more and fund the government. And for chain restaurants that are only marginally profitable the $250 daily fine might be enough to force the closure of that location.

The one that really got me is that the signs state that lids for drinks and drink carrier trays can only be provided at customer request. Have these legislators ever used a drive through? Have they ever heard of the infamous McDonald's lawsuit over spilled hot coffee? These restaurants would be paying out claims every hour for customers who had a soda or worse hot beverage spill in their car or on them. The lawsuit verdict basically stated that the restaurant is negligent if the cup or lid fails causing burns - and they're trying to legislate that the lid can't be provided? How many people do you think would manage to get burned per hour by falling cups at every Starbucks drive through if they knew it was a guaranteed massive lawsuit payout?

So the law becomes another fee and is never actually in force. The environmental impact becomes zero. It is a completely asinine, waste of time.
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: September 12th, 2022, 12:15 am Fuddruckers used to sell their hamburger buns. Back in the day when that chain had consistency they were probably the best hamburger bun you could find. I would visit my local one on the way home from work and grab a bag of buns then take them home and grill up my own burgers in the backyard.

I suspect that we will see this loophole thoroughly exploited all over the state and fast. The definition of bread for home consumption is really loose. How fast do you think In-N-Out could get their partners at Puritan Bakery to make some retail packaging for their buns and put a small rack in the stores? (Which, by the way, are made by different bakeries outside of the California market - the sponge bread recipe from Puritan is unique and not replicated well elsewhere. Salem, OR was using Franz and I don't know what they use in Dallas but it is too soft and reminded me of cheap grocery store house brand buns). Chick-fil-a sells their biscuits in the morning and offers a 6 pack of them. Would they qualify?

So the law becomes another fee and is never actually in force. The environmental impact becomes zero. It is a completely asinine, waste of time.
You don't really need a straw or drink lid. So what if some drink spills on you, you just need to get home and use soap/water to wash your clothing. Also maybe some energy for the dryer to get it dried. Hopefully it isn't 6 PM in August. Hopefully there aren't many files around. Anything to reduce plastic use even if whatever you just did has a lot more impact than that lid/straw would have had. At least they aren't forcing the fast food place to sell you a "reusable straw" made of super thick plastic that you still won't use more than once, for a mandatory 10 cent fee. I am confused how the gas station chains handle this in CA. Some chains have straws sitting at the cashier counter you can take freely. How is that any different from having them at the drink area? Other chains still have straws sitting at the drink area like they always have, using the argument that if you "take the straw by your own free will" they are "not providing the straw" to you. It will be interesting to see how that plays out I am sure there will be enforcement actions against the chains who are arguing that you take it on your own free will means they aren't providing it to you. I hope those chains win. Still no solution for drive throughs.

Franz produces an excellent hamburger bun if you can get the Franz product that is produced in OR/WA. US Foods Chef Store in Reno has Franz products made in OR/WA and then the Jacksons Food Stores have limited Franz products made in ID. I noticed Sam's Club has some Franz products in Reno now, but they are a defrost and sell item and made at Franz Los Angeles (FLA) plant. These do not seem to be the same as the OR/WA ones; they are drier and fall apart, yet have the same ingredients listing. I am assuming the issue is the "thaw and serve" on the FLA items.

KFC, Churchs, Popeyes, and Carls Jr. all sell biscuits. Carls biscuits are even "made from scratch." Surely that qualifies.

These lawmakers are showing that they really do not understand the industries they are trying to regulate, at all, with stuff like this... the average customer could have told them this is a major hole/flaw. I could have told them this when I was 17 years old. This is not exactly cryptic information.
Last edited by storewanderer on September 12th, 2022, 12:53 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by Bagels »

Even without the exception, The law is ridiculous, anyway. In a perfect world, business owners would give some of their profits to the employees, but in the real world, they’re just going to raise prices. Ultimately, it just adds to inflation. Who will want to bust their butt off going to college and working long hours, bringing their job home as an exempt employee when they can bank $46k/year sweeping floors at McD’s?

Not to mention, Aldi, Target & In-and-Out are just a few of the businesses now starting at $19/hr. BoA, Chase, etc. are committed to raising min wage to $25 for entry-level, non-college positions…. The market is working. Don’t mess with it.
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: September 12th, 2022, 12:50 am Even without the exception, The law is ridiculous, anyway. In a perfect world, business owners would give some of their profits to the employees, but in the real world, they’re just going to raise prices. Ultimately, it just adds to inflation. Who will want to bust their butt off going to college and working long hours, bringing their job home as an exempt employee when they can bank $46k/year sweeping floors at McD’s?

Not to mention, Aldi, Target & In-and-Out are just a few of the businesses now starting at $19/hr. BoA, Chase, etc. are committed to raising min wage to $25 for entry-level, non-college positions…. The market is working. Don’t mess with it.
This is what is happening. Prices will just increase. The question is how far can these chains increase prices before consumers stop going to them? I think they are already on the edge. Big Mac combo over $10, will people really pay much more for it? Maybe unit volumes will just end up lower, individual sales much higher margin, and far fewer employees that are expected to operate with superior efficiency?

There is not much more a business owner can do but sit here and say if costs go up, I will increase prices. And you know what, the corporate franchisor who is collecting royalty fees, is going to collect more royalty fees if prices go up. The governments are going to collect more taxes if prices go up. Who is going to lose? The consumer. The consumer is who always loses. And those workers making the $22/hr are consumers too; after all of the prices go up that $22/hr is going to go as far as the $12/hr not long ago went. And the $22/hr worker will be struggling in the same way the $12/hr worker has been struggling in recent years. But gross revenues for the franchisor for royalty fees and the governments for tax will go up. It is clear what is happening here and it isn't going to help the consumer.
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: September 12th, 2022, 12:46 am
ClownLoach wrote: September 12th, 2022, 12:15 am Fuddruckers used to sell their hamburger buns. Back in the day when that chain had consistency they were probably the best hamburger bun you could find. I would visit my local one on the way home from work and grab a bag of buns then take them home and grill up my own burgers in the backyard.

I suspect that we will see this loophole thoroughly exploited all over the state and fast. The definition of bread for home consumption is really loose. How fast do you think In-N-Out could get their partners at Puritan Bakery to make some retail packaging for their buns and put a small rack in the stores? (Which, by the way, are made by different bakeries outside of the California market - the sponge bread recipe from Puritan is unique and not replicated well elsewhere. Salem, OR was using Franz and I don't know what they use in Dallas but it is too soft and reminded me of cheap grocery store house brand buns). Chick-fil-a sells their biscuits in the morning and offers a 6 pack of them. Would they qualify?

So the law becomes another fee and is never actually in force. The environmental impact becomes zero. It is a completely asinine, waste of time.
You don't really need a straw or drink lid. So what if some drink spills on you, you just need to get home and use soap/water to wash your clothing. Also maybe some energy for the dryer to get it dried. Hopefully it isn't 6 PM in August. Hopefully there aren't many files around. Anything to reduce plastic use even if whatever you just did has a lot more impact than that lid/straw would have had.
My understanding of Starbucks procedure for example is that if a spill occurs in the drive through hand off because of the lid popping off etc. that causes injury or damage to the car that would need detailing (in the opinion of the customer) they have to get a Manager to take care of the customer and file an incident report with their liability carrier. Regardless of actual damage cost in the claim the cost from the carrier is about $1200 per incident report. If the claim pays out a fee hundred for cleaning the car then the carrier pockets the rest; of course if it is a burn injury that pays a million then the store just pays the same $1200. The point is that they established years ago it is considered to be a reckless disregard for customer safety to hand out a hot drink without a lid and stopper at the drive through - unless extreme extenuating circumstances occur such as the store is out of lids or stoppers the Starbucks "partner" who hands off the drink without a lid is to receive a final disciplinary action writeup. There is no way that they wouldn't be processing at least one incident report an hour and again at $1200 each they would practically have to double the price of every drink to comply with this law. And there are just not going to be any actual savings of plastic because how many people are going to be interested in driving off in their car with a hot drink with no lid that is going to splash all over the place by the time they exit the parking lot?
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Re: California $22/hr fast food law-FAST ACT- excludes Panera

Post by reymann »

FAST act could be delayed until at least 2025 if it gets enough signatures to qualify for the November 2024 ballot. The fast food industry is looking to file a referendum and start the signature gathering process to delay this from becoming law.
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