Bill aims at Hoch hub’s biz
Stadium pay hike eyed
State lawmakers want the company employing the husband of Gov. Hochul to pay its workers more or risk losing any chance at lucrative contracts in the new Buffalo Bills stadium that she foisted on state and local taxpayers to the tune of $850 million.
New York first gentleman Bill Hochul is senior vice president and general counsel at Delaware North, a company that manages “concessions, premium dining and retail services” at the current Bills stadium.
The sprawling company also operates a range of businesses on four continents, including a restaurant group that oversees food services at locations such as the Empire State Building and the Metropolitan Opera, according to the company website.
Newly introduced legislation would require any company that wants business at publicly supported professional sports facilities to pay workers at restaurant subsidiaries the full minimum wage rather than the lower rate allowed by law for tipped workers.
“We still have a two-tiered minimum-wage system . . . one place to start [changing things] is with this stadium, which is being financed by public money, so that we’re not using public tax dollars to finance sub-minimum wages,” state Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn) told The Post.
Food-service workers in New York City earn as little as $10 per hour before tips while their counterparts upstate make even less.
Any company that wants business at stadiums, arenas and related facilities receiving public support would have to pay restaurant and other service workers the full downstate $15 minimum wage or the $13.20 upstate minimum under a bill sponsored by Brisport and Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens).
The Hochul administration, which did not respond to a request for comment, has said that Bill Hochul is recusing himself from matters before the state.
But a potentially lucrative contract at the future Bills stadium would nonetheless help the bottom line of the company that paid him somewhere around a half-million dollars last year.