Initiative 82 supporters say they are concerned about a bill before the D.C. Council that would fast track implementation and create a new type of tip credit.

Tom Mills / DCist/WAMU

A D.C. bill that aims to provide relief to local restaurants in light of the city increasing the minimum wage for tipped workers is turning out to be almost as contentious as the ballot initiative that dictated that increase, as was evident in a two-day hearing at the D.C. Council that wrapped up this week.

The bill introduced in May by Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At Large) would require bars, restaurants, and other employers of tipped workers to pay their entire staff the city’s full prevailing minimum wage by 2025, two years earlier than called for by Initiative 82, the ballot measure approved by D.C. voters in November. (Currently tipped workers need to make the minimum wage through a combination of base wage and tips.) Among other things, the bill would also define service charges and mandate an education campaign for restaurant workers and customers.

Critics and supporters of McDuffie’s bill, called the Workers and Restaurants Are Priorities (WRAP) Act, are breaking down along the same lines as they did on Initiative 82.

One Fair Wage, a national group that supported the ballot initiative, sees the bill as dangerous. Ryan O’Leary, a former restaurant worker and former One Fair Wage organizer who filed to get Initiative 82 on the ballot, says the bill is a step backwards from the...

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