Defying predictability, longtime Westside businessman Bob Tepper, an avowed conservative, today endorsed California’s 75-cent minimum wage increase, which went into effect this week. At $7.50, California pays the fourth highest hourly minimum wage in the country. That a senior member of the business community should support the increase is news. Fifty-five years after establishing the hugely successful Tepper Bar Supply & Restaurant Supply business, Mr. Tepper still stands unflinchingly behind his opinions. “I never paid anybody the mininum wage,” says the entrepreneur who sold the company a year and a half ago but signed a 5-year contract to remain on as a consultant. “I had as many as 32 people working for me. Nobody ever got a minimum wage. I am not saying I paid the highest. But even years ago, my workers were starting at $8, $9 an hour.” There is, he said, an uncomplicated explanation for his compassion for the struggling wage-earners. He was there, in a way. He remembers how it felt. He recalls how slender his own non-existent wallet was in childhood. He held hands with poverty every day, and he didn’t like it. Grit, imagination, determination and an indomitable will combined in some unintended mix to spring him from his unwalled but severely limiting economic prison. A fair wage has been practically a lifetime subject for Mr. Tepper, having sweated on both sides of the counter. He would say he is a realist. “From the way I came up,” he said, “I know nobody is going to pay more than he has to pay.”
