by Devan Sipher
If I told you that the Santa Monica City Council amended the municipal employment code to allow for something called the right to retention, would your eyes glaze over? If I said it only impacted employees on the Santa Monica Pier, would it seem even less worthy of your limited mental bandwidth? I’m guessing six council members are hoping so, because in an effort to show unity with the city’s workers, or the union that represents some of them, those council members dealt a serious blow to democratic norms and good governance.
Let me back up a little. In January 2025, Rusty’s Surf Ranch, a restaurant and music venue, closed after more than thirty years on the Pier, which is city-owned property. For months, former employees have attended Council meetings, pleading for the Council to help them get their jobs back when a new restaurant eventually opens.
One could question the stage-managing of Unite Here Local 11, the hospitality union that has organized the Council appearances. But it’s hard to be unmoved by the plight of dedicated, decade-long workers who were left jobless and unable to afford Christmas gifts for their families. It’s also hard to understand why the proposed tenant for Rusty’s former site didn’t offer some kind of compromise up front, if not out of compassion than out of a desire to eliminate the negative publicity.
Instead, Council stepped into the fray, with arguably good intentions.
“I personally believe that when commerce happens on public land, as the governing body of that property, we have the right and responsibility to demand a public good on behalf of our community,” said Councilmember Dan Hall.
There’s actually already a city law, enacted after 9/11, that guarantees the rehiring of laid-off staff at businesses downtown and in most of Ocean Park, though not on the Pier. If the Council had just extended the ordinance to cover the Pier, they’d deserve praise for their effort. But that’s not all they did.
They changed the 2001 law, which applied only to businesses with more than $5 million of gross receipts, so that it now includes any company with more than five employees, and while the original law provided benefits to employees who had worked a minimum of six months, the new law covers anyone who has clocked in two hours a week for two months.
If you need help with the math, the Council is demanding employment protection for people who have worked only 16 hours. And the Council is demanding this not only from the company that laid them off but also from any future company that chooses to operate at the same location.
It’s the overreach that calls into question the motives of the six council members who voted for the ordinance, all of whom have received campaign donations from Unite Here, and it’s hard to know if it was furtivity or chagrin that explains the speed of their action.
Ordinarily, any policies impacting the Pier would first be addressed by the nonprofit Pier Corporation, which would then provide the Council with its recommendations. The Council isn’t obligated to take the advice, but the Pier Corporation board has a statutory role that can’t be eliminated by executive fiat.
However, such fiats have unfortunately become the preferred method of governance by both our national leaders and our local ones. Last year, the City Council purged every appointed board member of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. in an unprecedented power grab. To the Council’s credit, they didn’t choose to do the same to the Pier Corporation. Instead they just neutered it.
City staff didn’t consult with the Pier Corporation or even alert the board of the impending legislation prior to it being agendized at the Council meeting, which according to Executive Director Jim Harris has never happened before.
If the normal protocols had been followed, the Council might have learned that David Newberg, the Pier Corporation Treasurer, found multiple errors in the ordinance. There are misnumbered statute references and a conflict with the California Consumer Privacy Act, among other oversights. These are likely fixable mistakes, but only if they are fixed prior to being challenged in a court of law. Mostly, they’re evidence of sloppy work—and a reckless Council.
Is the Council’s behavior as reckless as what we’re seeing in Washington? No. But it’s more hypocritical. If we’re going to No Kings rallies, it’s not so we can dismantle democracy with a progressive wrecking ball rather than a MAGA one. I certainly far prefer elected leaders protecting workers to firing them. But the President also protects his supporters; they just don’t happen to be union employees.
“No one who shows up to do business in Santa Monica should be surprised that we care about protecting our workers,” said Mayor Caroline Torosis, and we can all be proud that we live in a place that stands up for its values. But that doesn’t mean we’re proud to have council members who treat good governance as a convenient political slogan that’s easily jettisoned whenever it’s an impediment to their wishes.
While hiding behind noble rhetoric, council members committed an act of political cowardice. They could have considered the Pier Corporation’s carefully calibrated suggestions, such as including mitigation requirements to avoid costly litigation, since the Council dubiously chose to make this municipal ordinance enforceable solely by private lawsuit.
Instead of a well crafted statute that balances the interdependent needs of workers and employers, the Council chose to rush through government micromanagement of small businesses at a time of fiscal crisis, when we’re in desperate need of such businesses to provide the very jobs the Council seeks to protect.
Several council members seemed uncomfortably aware of the contradiction, but instead of slowing down the process to ensure transparency and efficacy, they barreled forward. They are better than this. And we, the people, deserve better than this.
Devan Sipher can be reached at Devan@smdp.com.