The hourly minimum wage in Campbell will hit the $15 mark no sooner than the rest of the state in 2022.

The city council voted 4-1 on Jan. 17 to stay out of a regional effort by some other Santa Clara County cities—like Cupertino, Los Altos, Palo Alto and Mountain View—to accelerate the minimum wage to reach $15 per hour by 2019. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a plan that will slowly raise the state’s hourly minimum wage to $15 by 2022.

City staff proposed quickening the minimum wage schedule, which called for employees to begin making at least $12 per hour on July 1 this year, then $13 hourly on July 1, 2018, and finally $15 per hour on July 1, 2019.

Trainees in their first 120 days of employment and businesses with 25 or fewer employees would have been exempted. Nonprofit organizations would have begun the schedule on a one-year delay.

After hearing testimony from restaurant owners, the council concluded that raising the wage sooner would harm businesses. The business community told the council that the wage increase would force them to shoulder additional costs, specifically saying that hourly labor is one of the largest costs for them and the acceleration could result in cutting employees and hours.

Blue Line Pizza owner Angela Pace said if the city’s proposal had passed, she would have had to cut hours for employees and also lay off staff. Pace also owns and operates a Blue Line Pizza in Mountain View.

Pace told the council her Mountain View restaurant has seen the effects of the accelerated minimum wage. She said she’s had to cut hours and can only raise prices so high to keep her business open.

“In Mountain View we also see some of our neighbors struggling due to the…higher wage,” Pace said.

Pace added that she is steering clear of cities that have passed accelerated minimum wage ordinances when she considers opening another Blue Line location in the Santa Clara Valley.

John Trani, owner and operator of Hooters on Bascom Avenue, heatedly told the council that raising the minimum wage ahead of the state’s plan would result in back-of-the-house employees not seeing much of an increase in wages, whereas tipped employees would. Trani explained that employees such as cooks would still be excluded from collecting tips since they do not directly serve customers, whereas front-of-the-house employees such as hosts and waiters would see a minimum wage increase plus the addition of customer tips.

Sushi Confidential owner Randy Musterer said the wage increase would harm his business and hinted that, even as a business owner, he is a man of modest means.

“To give you an idea, I drive a 2000 Toyota pickup truck with over 200,000 miles, and I have a house where I rent rooms to be able to survive,” Musterer said. “I’m not a millionaire walking down the street with a lot of money.”

The Campbell Chamber of Commerce also had a representative present to ask the council to reject the early wage increase.

Vice Mayor Paul Resnikoff said many businesses in Campbell don’t have the scale and size to absorb the minimum wage increase.

“We have a different business profile here,” Resnikoff said. “We have a lot of small businesses here.”

Councilman Jeffrey Cristina strongly stated his opposition to the proposal.

“I really do believe this is terrible for the community and terrible for the people that employ others who live here,” Cristina said. “I sure haven’t heard anyone speak for it. The people who are going to be affected by this positively don’t care enough to come here and say, ‘Yeah, this is going to be good.’”

Mayor Liz Gibbons, who was the only one in favor of the accelerated wage increase, suggested raising the minimum wage by 50 cents in order to meet $15 by 2019.