Restaurant guests 'will have to pay'

Cliff Peale reporting:

It won't be long before visitors to Ohio restaurants see higher prices after voters approved Tuesday a constitutional amendment to increase the state’s minimum wage, one restaurant owner said today.

Starting next year, the minimum wage for servers, who rely on tips for most of their pay, will increase to $3.43 per hour from $2.13 per hour. Craig Maier, president and chief executive officer of Frisch's Restaurants Inc., said the measure would cost his company about $3 million a year and will mean increased prices early in 2007.

"The guest will have to pay it," Maier said.

Frisch's operates about 100 restaurants in Ohio, and servers can be about 30 percent of the total staff. Smaller restaurants will see a bigger impact, Maier predicted.

But he said the most onerous impact for business will be the privacy and record-keeping provisions. Under the amendment, employers must maintain complete pay records for all employees for at least three years after they leave the job, and provide free copies of those records to people acting on their behalf.

The amendment garnered about 56 percent of the vote Tuesday.