When California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed that exhorbitant $20 an hour minimum wage law for fast-food workers, franchise owners warned of restaurant shutdowns and employee layoffs, but no matter. Newsom insisted he was championing the little guy against the exploitation done by their corporate employers:

“California is home to more than 500,000 fast-food workers who – for decades – have been fighting for higher wages and better working conditions. Today, we take one step closer to fairer wages, safer and healthier working conditions, and better training by giving hardworking fast-food workers a stronger voice and seat at the table.”

What drivel. The law he signed was fraught with exceptions for political cronies and seemed to specially punish small franchise owners in Southern California beach and inland towns, same as was done during Newsom's COVID lockdowns.

Now we learn that Newsom won't cough up the same amount for his own employees at his tony gourmet restaurant located out on billionaire's row in San Francisco.

According to Newsweek:

A restaurant partially owned by California Governor Gavin Newsom is recruiting for a $16-per-hour role, despite a new state law guaranteeing a minimum wage of $20 per hour for fast-food workers. The restaurant appears not to meet the threshold for the new minimum wage, a law that Newsom himself signed to much fanfare in September.

On April 1, the new law guaranteeing a minimum wage of $20 per hour for fast-food workers employed in large chains took effect across California, up from the previous minimum of $16.

The law was passed by Democrats in the state legislature last year but has come under fire from some Republicans who claim it will cost jobs. A wage of $20 per hour for a full-time worker results in an annual salary of $41,600.

The new law applies to those restaurants that are part of a chain of 60 or more venues nationwide and which offer limited or no table service.

Which is just so very ... Newsom. The far-left Democrat never fails to carve out an exception for himself when he's imposing expensive, burdensome regulations onto small businesses in the state. For him, he's always the exception.

Instead of set an example of good corporate-citizenship by coughing up the $20 an hour and raising his food prices on his customers, too, as fast-food franchise owners have had no choice but to do, he and his Democrats in Sacramento first exempted his kind of restaurant, the tony fancy boutique restaurant that caters to the rich, and then Newsom threw it in our faces by offering a sub-$20 an hour wage to his workers, the kind whose skill-set qualifications for bussing tables are about the same as those of fast-food workers.

The guy working in the McDonald's across town gets $20 an hour, but the guy working in Newsom's fancy establishment gets just $16 for the same labor. All this, in the country's most expensive city, San Francisco, which is what this law was all about -- that living wage Newsom waxed so sanctimoniously about.

It's par for the course for him. After imposing lockdowns on the entire state, throwing countless restaurants, gyms, beauty salons, and other small businesses out of business, he himself went to dine out at the ultra-fancy Michelin-starred establishment French Laundry with all his lobbyist buddies and political cronies, none of them wearing their masks.

He knows his measures punish small businesses, but he doesn't care, because he's got his marching orders from Big Labor, which is the source of this bad law, and he probably believes his own baloney anyway.

Costs for thee, but not for me, you see. Call it the Newsom Doctrine.

He can't cough up an extra $4 an hour for the busboy even for appearance's sake?

Obviously, his head has grown too big with all that Brylcream. Time to get rid of that law, or better still, get rid of him through that new recall referendum now making the rounds.

Image: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0