Newsom: Panera Bread not exempt from fast food law

Governor Gavin Newsom is responding to reports that Panera Bread will be exempt from...

California’s new minimum wage law for fast food workers.

The governor now says that Panera Bread may not be exempt from the law after all.

The new law doesn’t recognize places that operate “a bakery that produces for sale on the establishment’s premises bread” as fast food, according to its text.

Why the line was drawn at bread remains unclear.

“That’s part of the sausage-making of politics,” Newsom previously said

However, multiple media reports published on Wednesday revealed that Newsom’s relationship with Greg Flynn,

a billionaire and longtime donor who has two dozen Panera Bread locations in the Golden State,

may have been the reason the exemption was included.

Newsom is firing back at those claims.