I wish I had a dime for every scare tactic used by business over my lifetime — scare tactics to argue against any taxes (“we’ll leave”), or to argue for so-called “free trade” etc. etc…because it’s a bitch when those scare tactics turn out, in reality, to be as substantive as cotton candy. Add sick leave to the list.

You may have picked up the most recent scare tactic campaign waged by business to try to stop New York City from requiring paid sick leave. The sky would fall, businesses would go belly up, yadda, yadda…

But, the reality is that paid sick leave usually is a blip:

Six years later, Mr. Stone admits to having been a little alarmist about paid sick leave. “As a small restaurant business, it’s really hard to make money, and when they add another requirement, it makes you nervous,” Mr. Stone said in a recent interview. “But all and all, I actually think it’s a good thing.”

But in San Francisco, the District of Columbia and the state of Connecticut, places that have had such laws in force for more than a year (Seattle adopted one in September), it can be difficult to find small-business owners who say they have been hampered by the law’s obligations — though some object in principle…

…Among those companies that did have to put a new policy in place, about half reported that adopting and managing it was not difficult, according to the study. And many businesses fearful that paying for sick leave would drive up expenses have since reported that those concerns were unfounded. Richard Crain, who runs the Village Grill in San Francisco, said his nine employees were not sick that often. “You have to give them one week per year,” he said. “But usually it’s just a day or two here and there.”

Mr. Stone agreed, and said that paid sick leave increased his payroll costs by less than 1 percent. “In retrospect,” he said, “it really hasn’t been a big expense at all.”

Just another day in the life of the business lobbyists being proven wrong.