I can see the motivation here for the SF legislation, it
is problematic that we tend not to leave the office for lunch, but there are some major issues that the author, Asha Safai, has clearly missed:
(a) Twitter, Google, Facebook, and Genentech are grandfathered into their cafeterias, and it's fairly unlikely any other companies will build cafeterias.
(b) This is partially because most companies are too small for a dedicated cafeteria, so they use a catering service like ZeroCater, which source most meals from local restaurants that don't do much or any lunch service.
(c) There are other companies like Gap, which have a cafeteria largely because there is nothing near their office but parking lots, and they are next to UCSF which certainly has at least one cafeteria at that location.
I think there is work to be done here, I think that this
does tie into other problems like housing and general rent, but I don't think it's a good solution to it.
One of the major ways this misses the boat is that there are lower paid employees in tech companies, often contractors, who have access to free food in ways that substantially makes life more affordable for them. So yes, engineers pulling six figures are maybe given a little toooo much perks, but when that is spread around, I'm strongly in favor of it. There are people in these tech offices making not much more than minimum wage, and I'm not just talking about janitorial and maintenance staff - I'm talking about CS, QA, UX contractors and all manner of other office work.
Safai is not really a progressive, so he's probably come up with this idea to overcompensate for that and appeal to progressives. This doesn't really sound like Aaron Peskin, either, who mostly works to coalition build and is primarily focused on housing policy.
I would suspect that Peskin is supporting this to get Safai to work with him on some other bill, and that he expects it to fail.