A fan looks at the menu at a concession stand as teams warm up before an NFL wild-card playoff football game between the Buffalo Bills and the Indianapolis Colts at Bills Stadium Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021, in Orchard Park, N.Y. AP file photo

State Sen. Jabari Brisport’s opposition to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s state funding deal for a new Buffalo Bills stadium is now extending to stadium food courts.

Brisport recently proposed S.9192, which would require sports facilities receiving money from the state to only contract with companies that pay their employees the state’s minimum wage.

“Currently, food service employers have the ability to pay sub-minimum wages to workers, as long as workers receive on average the difference between their reduced minimum wage and the statutory minimum wage in tips,” Brisport wrote in his legislative justification. “Allowing for this tipped credit has created many inequities in food service work, and eight states have already eliminated the tipped credit, requiring that food service employees be paid the full minimum wage. This bill would require that, for any sports facilities that receive funding from New York State, no contract with a food services vendor shall be entered unless the vendor pays at least the state minimum wage to its employees, without crediting gratuities.”

The bill would apply to stadiums occupied by the New York Yankees, New York Islanders, Brooklyn Nets, New York Mets and the Buffalo Bills. Each of the New York City-based stadiums received state funding when they were built — though they received less of a state subsidy than the Bills’ stadium is receiving.

Before the state’s budget — and the Bills’ stadium construction finance plan — was finalized, Brisport penned a letter signed by 20 state senators opposing the deal. Brisport, D-Brooklyn, wrote the NFL, an entity valued at $112 billion, had only agreed to commit $200 million to the stadium deal through a loan while disagreeing with the Bills keeping all stadium revenues, which includes parking, concessions, naming, television and media rights. Critics of the stadium funding deal have been critical of a possible conflict of interest in Hochul’s negotiations with the Bills for the stadium deal is the potential benefit the deal brings to Delaware North, a hospitality and food service company that employs William Hochul, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s husband and a former U.S. Attorney, as a senior vice president and general counsel.

“Recently, Governor Kathy Hochul said she would put $850 million taxpayer dollars to fund the new Buffalo Bills stadium, which her spouse’s company manages the concessions,” advocacy group One Fair Wage wrote on its Facebook page Wednesday. “Let’s stop using taxpayer dollars to fund companies that pay subminimum wages to their employees. We need to ensure all workers earn #OneFairWage in NY State. Thank you (Jabari Brisport) and (Assemblyman Ron Kim) for fighting to ensure that all food service workers in the proposed $850 million taxpayer-funded Buffalo Bills stadium pay #OneFairWage.”

In August 2021, Kathy Hochul attested in writing that she will recuse herself from any actions relating to Delaware North, according to The Buffalo News. The newspaper also reported William Hochul has agreed to recuse himself from any supervisory role over Delaware North government affairs or corporate compliance staff, won’t involve himself in the company’s dealings with New York state and receive no incentive payments for the company’s performance in New York.