They have a FAQ explaining the rules here: https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Fast-Food-Minimum-Wage-FAQ.htm
You may be thinking of this:
> Restaurants that operate a bakery that "produces" and sells "bread" as a stand-alone menu item as of September 15, 2023, and continue to do so are exempt from the new law.
Not "goofy" at all, perfectly rational -- once one learns that Panera is a contributor to Governer Newsom's political campaigns.
So in order to get the exemption you would need to get a time machine in addition to the $200 bread machine.
(2) They’d have to go back in time to do it (even if they did when the governor signed the bill), since the cut-off date was in the past when the bill was signed. If they were really pro-active, I guess a chain could have bought bread machines and changed its menu in the four days between the final bill text being presented in the committee and the cut-off date, but my guess is none did.
(3) The main thing this bill does is create a uniform state wide regulatory body for fast food (large chain) working conditions including any potential higher-than-general minimum wage, exempting them potential local regulations doing similar things, possibly inconsistently, throughout the state. Wiggling out of the coverage of this bill would wiggle them back into that kind of potential multi-jurisdiction regulation issue; the $20 minimum wage is an initial wage boost for the industry included in the bill before the council is up and running, but not the main focus.
They hire from the same pool of labor as fast food franchises anyways. Actual, proper bakeries are a bit different and more incestuous IME, I think it’s the odd working hours.
Bloomberg thought otherwise:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-28/panera-br...
Boudin is the only restaurant that would have qualified for the exception. Their owner is not a donor to Newsom.
Companies can potentially escape the law by providing more than "limited service", or splitting the company so they have fewer than 60 locations, or selling food that requires some preparation by the customer.
Probably not, since part of the reason it is so specific is that it preempts local targeted (industry-specific as opposed to general) minimum wage laws. So trying to wiggle out around the boundary of the law would potentially expose a chain to having to deal with different targeted minimum wage laws in multiple CA jurisdictions.