The costs are always small when it's someone else's money.

If paid sick leave is the right thing to do, then let's do it. But at least have the decency to acknowledge that you are requiring restaurant owners to foot the bill, and that the money involved may be significant depending on the particulars of a given business.

Ooh, that's faaabulous work right there. It's not just that they're economists, it's that they're academics - not industry paid shill economists for hire. Super impressive. Suck on it, Chamber o' Commerce.

And if you have a horible job with high turnover, its really going to suck for the worker as every other week someone quits, but first uses up whatever sick/vacation time they have before they quit over email/im/phone.

#3: wait, so if you hire potheads and fuckups, you shouldn't hafta pay the price for your incompetent hiring practices?

@1:

Except that it's not "someone else's money", is it? It's the customers' money. One of the arguments anti-ordinance hacks have been using to try to drum up opposition is the "oooh, these terrible, horrible, no-good, very expensive costs will simply be passed along by the employer to the consumer" ploy. But, if the costs are really that negligible, then either the employer will be able to absorb them with very little negative impact to their bottom line, or, if they DO pass them along, it will be such a small increase that consumers will barely notice the difference. Either way, it shoots down that particular argument, if nothing else.