Regulation often has the dangerous side effect of making it impossible for smaller players to stay in the game, while, as you note, the big players can weather

Regulation often has the dangerous side effect of making it impossible for smaller players to stay in the game, while, as you note, the big players can weather the storm for a couple of years until they've got no competition left...and then they can raise their prices without competitive pressure from the little guys. That doesn't necessarily mean the regulation is bad, but as someone who has always owned their own (small) businesses, I'm sympathetic. And, of course, there is a tendency for those who support regulations to see the negative side effects and address it with more regulation. Also a potentially dangerous response (though also not always wrong). I tend to prefer regulations be applied more lightly to very small businesses. The dynamic of "faceless evil overlord that doesn't care about their employees vs. powerless peon" doesn't usually apply to a bookstore with a dozen employees. But, that's probably not tenable for a minimum wage; even if smaller businesses weren't required to comply by law, they'd likely have a hard time hiring people if they weren't paying the same as the big chains. Then again, this is not just a story of the minimum wage increasing; all bookstores are facing pressure from online sales, and have been for years. Employees are expensive and it takes more of them per-sale for a brick and mortar than for a shipping warehouse. They're all having to innovate their way out of obsolescence or die trying. I guess we'll see how this plays out in SF. The economic disparity in SF is so high, it's probably a good thing that there's a people-driven attempt to rectify it.