Thread by @rebeccavallas

For anyone needing more evidence the @SaveOurTips anti-minimum wage propaganda is built on a house of lies…

The lobby group behind the campaign to kill #Initiative77 is the same group that claimed a smoking ban would be the death of DC restaurants over a decade ago.

(THREAD.)

@saveourtips 1/ One of the main lobby groups trying to keep DC’s tipped workers from getting a raise under #Initiative77 is the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (@RAMWdc).

They’re the ones behind the astroturf @SaveOurTips campaign.

@saveourtips @RAMWdc 2/ @RAMWdc’s @SaveOurTips misinformation campaign is full wild, unsubstantiated claims, as I’ve noted before:

https://twitter.com/rebeccavallas/status/1006506234898509824

But their effort to kill #Initiative77 is hardly the first time they’ve lied to DC voters to try to sink a popular ballot measure.

3/ Over a decade ago, @RAMWdc fought tooth & nail to kill a ban on smoking in DC restaurants, bars & other public places.

The sky-is-falling claims they made were proven unfounded.

Now they’re trying to scare DC voters by making many of the same claims about #Initiative77.

@RAMWdc 4/ Then, as with #Initiative77 now, @RAMWdc claimed a smoking ban would destroy DC’s restaurants and have a “devastating impact on the local hospitality economy.”

@RAMWdc 5/ Then, as with #Initiative77 now, @RAMWdc claimed a smoking ban would send diners to Virginia and Maryland.

Talking points included: "For a lot of people, it's hard to have that cold beer in one hand without a cigarette in the other.”

@RAMWdc 6/ @RAMWdc spuriously claims there are “adequate safeguards” against wage theft.

Well that’s the same thing they said about secondhand smoke.

Executive director Lynn Breaux claimed “ventilators” were plenty to protect restaurant-goers from smoking’s hazards.

@RAMWdc 7/ Then, as now, @RAMWdc claimed “outsiders” were coming to DC to tell “us” what to do.

"What we see is a small group of zealots who are funded by out-of-town money [and] who want to impose their values on city residents," said general counsel Andrew Kline of the smoking ban.

@RAMWdc 8/ Then, as now, @RAMWdc was willing to lie to DC voters in an effort to sink a popular ballot measure.

6 in 10 DC voters backed a smoking ban when it got put on the ballot—and 64% plan to vote #YesOn77 now.

That’s what they’re afraid of.

@RAMWdc 9/ DC’s voters didn’t fall for @RAMWdc’s sky-is-falling claims about DC’s smoking ban.

(Which you may have noticed proved unfounded, as DC’s restaurant industry is booming today).

And they shouldn’t fall for them now as they go to the polls on June 19 to vote on #Initiative77.

@RAMWdc 10/ Me?

As a DC resident, a former server, and as someone who spends every day fighting to end poverty in America (including in my own backyard here in DC)...

I'm proud to be voting #YesOn77.

/end