The consequences of California’s unprecedented minimum wage experiment are playing out in real time, as the state’s papers cover the stories of affected businesses who are cutting staff or closing their doors as a result of the rising wage floor.

Houman Salem, who owns a small apparel design and manufacturing business in San Fernando, is one of those business owners. He recently learned the hard way that Californians’ sunny disposition does not extend to residents who voice their concerns about the state’s labor laws.

On January 2, Salem announced in an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times that labor cost increases had forced him to leave California for Las Vegas. It quickly became the most popular opinion piece on LATimes.com, generating over 600 comments and more than a dozen follow-up articles in local and national publications. Unfortunately, the reaction on social media was one of rage rather than reflection.

“Good riddance,” said one of the top comments on Facebook. “If you can’t pay your employees a living wage, you don’t have my sympathy,” said another. Other comments accused Salem of being a bad businessman, of keeping too much money for himself and of exploiting his employees. Some readers even left negative reviews of his business online — even though they’d never met him or done business with him.

I reached out to Salem to hear his reaction to the backlash, which was one of resignation and despair. “It’s an unfortunate and uninformed attitude,” he told me over the phone recently. “It reflects a misunderstanding of how a business operates, where a massive increase in your cost of labor triggers a number of other costs and expenses.” Salem told me that his biggest fear is that the outraged reaction online will discourage other affected businesses (of whom there are hundreds) from speaking out and telling their own story.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was quoted in response to Salem’s op-ed in a New York Times article, and argued that one of the reasons the city is thriving is its minimum wage law. Salem laughs at this idea: “$15 has barely begun to phase in, and already I’m contacted on an almost daily basis by other L.A.-based companies in my industry who are scared about the future. They are looking to me for leadership, and want to talk about my decision to leave the state.”

He added that the mayor doesn’t seem to understand the realities of the region’s economy at the micro level: “When politicians talk about an ‘economy working for everyone’ — let me tell you, it’s not working for the small business owner.”

Salem chafed at critics who suggested he’s taking advantage of his employees. He pointed out that, until California moved the goalposts, he’d always paid above minimum wage. His company would happily pay even more, were it not for customers’ price sensitivity — not to mention other expenses that drive up the cost of doing business. “I want to pay my people as much as I can, as often as I can, but there are lots of costs associated with that.” He ticked off a few, such as taxes and workers compensation, that make California a particularly difficult state in which to do business, and then offered a proposal of his own: “If California legislators are genuinely concerned about residents struggling to get by, why not reduce or eliminate their payroll taxes and other taxes?”

There’s also the impact of California’s wage mandate on employees’ morale. “A $15 minimum wage doesn’t just affect the people who make less than that,” Salem told me. “It also affects skilled workers, like the artisans who work for me.” Sewing the kind of technical garments that Salem’s company produces is a highly-skilled trade, and employees who’ve perfected the trade won’t be happy if they’re earning the same wage as someone who’s 17 years old working their first job. This problem isn’t unique to the apparel industry. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that, after recent wage hikes, “some veteran employees are unhappy about earning same wage as less experienced hires.”

Despite the challenges of doing business in California, Salem (unlike some of his competitors) is still committed to making his products domestically. “I’m an American — I want this country to do well, to succeed, and I want to do everything in my power to further that goal by creating good-paying jobs.” As we concluded our conversation, he told me he’s not opposed to raising wages — but that the entire burden can’t rest on small business owners. “I need the government to meet me halfway. In California, unfortunately, that kind of compromise doesn’t exist.”

Michael Saltsman is research director at the Employment Policies Institute.