The Santa Monica City Council voted 6-1 early Wednesday to adopt new worker recall and retention protections for hospitality businesses on the city-owned pier, siding with labor unions and worker advocates over local businesses who said the rule would hurt operations and trigger lawsuits.
The ordinance amends the city's existing worker recall law and adds new retention requirements for pier hospitality businesses with five or more employees. It requires employers to rehire laid-off workers when positions become available and mandates that new operators retain existing employees for 90 days after taking control of a business or if they are taking over from an already closed business owners must first offer jobs to individuals who previously worked in Santa Monica.
The vote came after several hours of debate, with Councilmember Lana Negrete casting the sole dissenting vote. The measure passed with modifications removing attorney fee provisions from enforcement mechanisms and removal of a clause that would have allowed business owners to reject applicants who they felt were unqualified for the position.
The new rules expand Santa Monica's 2001 worker recall law, originally adopted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, to cover hotels on city-owned property and pier hospitality businesses.
Under the recall provisions, employers must offer available positions to workers who performed at least two hours of work per week for six months or more and were laid off after Sept. 9, 2025, for economic reasons. Offers must be made in writing with at least 10 days for workers to respond.
The retention requirements mandate that when a hospitality business on the pier changes ownership or control, the new operator must retain existing employees for 90 days and provide performance evaluations at the end of that period.
The provisions apply to businesses providing eating and drinking services, as well as entertainment venues like arcades and amusement facilities. Nonprofit organizations are exempted, as are managerial, supervisory and confidential employees.
The ordinance allows for enforcement through civil action or injunction, with possible damages for violations.
Council members struggled to determine how many businesses would be affected by the new rules, particularly around the threshold of five employees.
Councilmember Jesse Zwick questioned whether raising the employee count to 25 would significantly reduce the ordinance's scope, but city staff said they lacked detailed employment data for pier tenants.
City Manager Oliver Chi said the pier has six restaurant leases, nine retail leases, six nonprofit leases and nine concession cart leases. Staff estimated the rules would clearly cover restaurant, retail and nonprofit leases but would need to research individual cart operations to determine if they meet the five-employee threshold.
The majority of the council framed worker protections as essential to the city's economic interests, particularly as Santa Monica prepares to host events tied to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics.
Mayor Caroline Torosis said the provision balanced the needs of businesses and workers by only applying to a small group of potential employees.
“Want to be very clear that Council provided direction back summer to bring back very targeted worker protections for hospitality on city owned assets, and we have significantly narrowed the scope of what we've asked for, because we are being we are trying to be extremely judicious, given that we are effectuating an economic revitalization for the city,” she said.
Councilmember Dan Hall acknowledged the ordinance creates challenges for businesses but said the city has a responsibility to protect workers.
"I personally believe that when commerce happens on public land, the governing body of that property has the right and responsibility to demand a public good on behalf of our community," Hall said. "For me, that means standing for stability and respect for workers who keep this place running every single day."
Councilmember Ellis Raskin, who made the motion to approve the ordinance, said removing the private right of action would shift enforcement burden to taxpayers.
"It's going to get enforced anyway. It just shifts the burden on the taxpayers," Raskin said, arguing the attorney fees provision wasn't essential since other state law provisions could provide for fees anyway.
Sean Ahaus, CEO and co-owner of California Roadhouse Inc., which was recently selected to operate at 256 Santa Monica Pier, submitted written opposition warning the ordinance could violate his company's due process rights.
Ahaus said his company submitted a letter of intent in July 2025 and received approval from the Santa Monica Pier Corporation in October. The company has since invested substantial resources based on that approval.
"California Roadhouse, Inc. believes that a vested right to complete our improvements in 256 Santa Monica Pier exists," Ahaus wrote. "It is the position of California Roadhouse, Inc. that any new changes to local ordinance(s) should not be retroactive and should be prohibited from negatively restricting or affecting the rights of California Roadhouse, Inc."
Ahaus argued the ordinance would force new businesses to hire all previous staff regardless of qualifications, experience or whether they contributed to the previous business's failure.
"California Roadhouse, Inc. believes that forcing new businesses to hire employees solely based on where they have previously worked, over and regardless of any potential employee's qualifications, and over an employee's character, integrity and/or merit is a recipe for disaster," he wrote.
Negrete, the lone dissenting vote, criticized the ordinance as "completely anti-business" and "anti-resident," arguing it would discourage businesses from operating in Santa Monica. In a statement after the vote, she expressed concern about policies shaped by organized labor interests rather than community priorities.
“UNITE HERE Local 11 is heavily involved in Santa Monica elections — through endorsements, campaign spending, and paid political organizing. That’s legal,” she said. “
But legality doesn’t remove the responsibility to ask: who is shaping policy — and whose voices are missing from the room?
We did not have meaningful roundtables with small business owners. We did not do a serious economic impact analysis. And we did not clearly distinguish between large hotels and a small business with five employees taking over a space that’s been dark for months.”
Negrete said that she believed the rules would favor corporate ownership who have the resources to absorb the additional costs the rules would impose and that as a local business owner she said she respects workers but will not support policies that push out small business owners from city property.
The rule will return to council for a second reading and while it can be modified at that time, doing so would likely require it to be brought back for a third discussion.