Posted on 04/19/2024 2:13:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Utilities inflation arguably hurts restaurants more than higher food and labor costs
Every time Oakland restaurateur Geoff Davis looks at his PG&E bill, he feels helpless.
“I talk about it a lot with my friends. It’s a big line item for us,” the chef-owner of Burdell told SFGATE. “Last month [PG&E] was like 40% of our rent. It’s an insane amount and obviously this is my first time being an owner, but I know from other places that I’ve worked that it wasn’t this big of a number.”
It’s an expensive time to run a restaurant — or to eat at one. Increased food and labor costs are driving up prices across the board. Commercial utilities, such as water, gas and electricity, have also risen significantly in the last year, according to five restaurant owners who spoke to SFGATE about the effects of commercial rate hikes.
In the Bay Area, where monopolies such as PG&E are often the only utility options, restaurateurs like Davis, a finalist for the coveted James Beard Award for Best Chef in California, have few alternatives other than to foot the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
At PG&E a lot (all? Im not sure) employees were by default getting their 401K contributions in the company stock fund. Many had just left their money in that, instead of moving it to more diversified portfolios. When the fires nearly wiped out the stock... bye bye 401K.
California has sued PG&E for Billions of dollars for wildfires. Add to that all of the climate change mandates That money has to come from somewhere. Chickens are now coming home to roost.
If it hurts democrats it’s just okay!
That is very expensive. The kwh rate you are being charged is more than 4 times my rate here in NC. In fact, more than 5 times our rate of 10 cents for peak hours. Outrageous.
Parts of Texas have some choice in who you buy electricity from. You have to pay the middle man in any event (the company that transports the electricity from the manufacturer to the retail vendor) but you can select the retail vendor, and they can select where they get the electricity. Areas served by rural electric co-ops are exempt from competition. And some municipalities have their own generating plants.
Natural gas, on the other hand, is a monopoly.
Most utilities are run with strict public oversight. If a state has multiple utilities it is because each company serves a different part of the state.
In California PG&E can't raise rates without getting approval from a board. The problem is not PG&E. The problem is the board and the other politicians who have been forcing the utilities to move to renewables before their time. Also, it's not about requiring the utilities to build more plants or more dams, but in not retiring or limiting existing infrastructure.
Everywhere in California they are misusing dams to save a few fish, or retiring power plants because a bunch of idiots built and bought houses adjacent to the power plants and want the unsightly things removed.
The utilities are being dealt a bad hand due to clueless politicians and residents.
>I haven’t heard of that before. Can anyone comment if they do that in your region?
Yes they do, at least in northern NV. Look closely at your bill as they may be doing it to you too.
Not sorry a bit for Californians.
Y’all voted for this insisting on “green energy”, shutting down perfectly good nuclear power plants, tearing down dams and “DEI” politics.
You crapped in your beautiful best, now lay in it!
And don’t come to Tennessee!!
We’ve got enough in Memphis and Nashville as is!
best=nest
McDonalds does have a 20 piece chicken nugget spicy for $7
The rest I ain’t buying. Over priced.
It’s xidenomics baybee!
Pay more, get less.
That’s what happens when you 1. tear out all the dams 2. shut down your nukes 3. subsidize an unworkable green agenda to the max 4. sue the power provider up the wing wang for not removing trees you won’t let them remove and then large wild fires occur and you blame the provider. I’m sure I could go on, but that’s a start.
MORE REASONS to totally OPT OUT OF “SMART THERMOSTATS”.
Y’all voted for it. It’s YOUR DEMOCRACY TM at work for the well-healed. It’s for the oppressed.
Install solar panels.....
Charcoal makes for great steaks, burgers and chicken.
Electric power “time of use” rates for commercial customers have been around for 50 or more years. Nothing new
food court - low income Jose’s chicken, low income Maria’s tacos, etc.
electric rates matching net declared income
no management hassles tambien
Beauty salons rent out spaces.
Oh, wait, not in Kali - that's illegal now too. Never mind.
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