Joel Hill, head brewer at Bravery Brewing Co. in Lancaster, accepts the Guild of the Year award on behalf of the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild.
Los Angeles County craft breweries in April had a strong showing at the Brewers Cup of California, with the Los Angeles County Brewers Guild winning back-to-back Guild of the Year awards.
Multiple breweries took home several awards, punctuated by downtown-based Arts District Brewing Co. taking home three golds – one for Norm in American-style stouts/black ales, another for Kindling in smoke beers and the third for The Lush in Vienna-style lagers. Lincoln Beer Co. in Burbank also took home a pair of golds, one for Railsplitter in American-style ambers/red ales and the other for Vanilla Carousel in American-style strong ales.
Other guild members winning gold included Hawthorne-based Common Space Brewery for Good Signs under American-style pale ales and Redondo Beach-based TrustedGut for Blonde Ale under honey beers. Other silver winners were Long Beach-based Trademark Brewing for Codebreaker under American IPAs; Lawndale-based Far Field Beer Co. for Infrared under American-style ambers/red ales; the downtown location of Athens, Georgia-based Creature Comforts Brewing Co. for Pils, Baby! under American-style lagers; Long Beach-based Ambitious Ales for Professional Human Being under hazy IPAs; and Pico Rivera-based Brewjeria Co. for Californio under historical beers. Bronze winners included Palmdale-based Lucky Luke Brewing Co. for Lucky Light under American-style light lagers; El Segundo-based Five Point Five Brewing Co. for Tank Farm under American-style strong ales; Glendale-based Paperback Brewing Co. for Surrealist under Belgian-style pale beers; Long Beach-based Altar Society Brewing & Coffee Co. for Darkest Rituals under chocolate beers; Monrovia-based Hop Secret Brewing Co. for Tongue Butter under specialty stouts; and El Segundo-based El Segundo Brewing Co. for Standard Crude under wood- and barrel-aged beers.
Thousand Oaks-based Tarantula Hill Brewing Co. also took home awards – a gold for Feel the Flow under international-style pilseners and two silvers, one for Liquid Candy under hazy pale ales and the other for Call Day under international pale ales.
Modern Wealth Management, a registered investment advisory firm, has added a Calabasas-based wealth management company to its growing list of acquisitions.
As Modern Wealth’s 15th add-on, Planned Asset Management, an independent advisory firm focused on financial planning and investment management, brings with it more than $350 million in assets under management. This, along with a 16th purchase last week, carries the firm’s total to more than $7.5 billion.
Prior to Planned Asset Management, Modern Wealth purchased Wade Financial in Silicon Valley in April – which brought in more than $700 million – as part of the firm’s mission to establish its California market share. While Modern Wealth has its headquarters in Monterey, this location is solely for internal operations and is not client facing, making the firm’s official advisory presence in California new with these two acquisitions.
Expanding regional presence
Launched in April 2023, Modern Wealth was jumpstarted by $200 million in equity financing from Crestview Partners. The firm has since prioritized expanding its presence across all major regions, said Jason Gordo, president and cofounder. The West Coast was no exception.
“We see L.A. not just as a regional hub, but as a nationally significant market – one that plays a key role in our broader strategy,” Gordo said. “We’re continuing to increase our presence in the area and deepen our commitment to serving clients in one of the most dynamic financial markets in the country.”
Gordo said Modern Wealth’s “planning-first, tax-aware approach” will mesh well with L.A.’s pool of high-net-worth individuals, specifically highlighting the firm’s team structure. Through Modern Wealth’s model, each client receives an advisory team comprised of a certified public accountant, a certified financial analyst and a certified financial planner – rather than relying on disparate firms for each.
“What sets us apart is how we’re organized,” Gordo said. “… That collaborative model ensures clients receive well-rounded, expert guidance.”
Human resources managers’ eyes may glaze over when they see another headline about meal and rest breaks. Yet, meal and rest break issues are the bane of every HR manager’s existence and are front and center in virtually every class action, PAGA or single-employee wage case. Here are some concrete suggestions to avoid such claims.
Clarify when meal breaks start and stop
Make clear when meals are scheduled and for how long. Employers and employees are often confused about “must begin by the end of the fifth hour” language. Use an example. If a shift starts at 7 a.m., the latest an employee can begin their meal is at 11:59 a.m.
Consider using a lock-out system so employees can’t clock back in from their meal break until a full 30 minutes have elapsed. There will never be a short meal. If your system can accommodate it, provide a 2-to-3-minute paid grace period for clocking back in.
Don’t allow bosses to fill out time sheets
If employees are in the field (e.g., construction, janitorial), don’t allow the foremen to fill out field sheets that cover meal times. Each crew member must sign off on their meal. It’s too easy for plaintiff attorneys to poke holes in those field sheets if employees are not accountable for documenting their own meal breaks.
Pay for personal phone usage
If employees are tracking their time in the field, it’s often done electronically using a phone app. Remember to pay employees for the use of their personal phone when they use the app.
Never use automatic meal break deductions
Courts hate automatic meal break deductions. Employers can be tempted to use them in more static environments like manufacturing or not-so-easy-to-track environments (e.g., in-the-field workers). Never use them. This rule applies even if all employees stop work at the same time. You can never be sure that everyone stopped or started their meal break at the same time.
No rounding
Relatively recent case law has made clear that employers can never round a meal break, such as 29 minutes up to 30 minutes. Employers should never be rounding any time at any point in the day.
Correctly use meal break waivers
Meal break waivers are useful for short days that are six hours or less, or longer days of 10 hours or more. A new California appellate opinion in April reaffirmed what we had always thought, but what was in dispute: a meal break waiver, signed only once at the outset of employment, is sufficient, so long as it is clear that the employee has the power to revoke the waiver at any time. Don’t make the waiver revocable in writing or on 24 hours’ notice.
Although the court did not expressly address it, there’s no reason to believe that there would be a different result for waiving the second meal in the same manner after working more than 10 hours. Don’t confuse meal waivers with rarely-applicable on-duty meal agreements.
Use an attestation
Other than the timesheet itself, a daily meal and rest break attestation is perhaps the most effective way to protect employers from meal and rest break claims. Many of the electronic payroll systems can accommodate an attestation, done daily. When using an attestation, questions regarding meals and rest breaks appear electronically as the employee clocks out. Employees cannot finish clocking out for the day until they finish answering a few simple questions. Attestations should be daily. Attestations weekly or at the end of a pay period are relatively useless and courts generally discount their value.
Be careful about what the attestation says, however, as I have encountered several situations recently in which even larger payroll services or the company internally has created an attestation that does no good. The attestation should pop up when the system recognizes a defective meal (short, late or nonexistent), or can simply appear every day as the employee clocks out. Employees are required to acknowledge whether they received their meals and rest breaks properly. If not, they’re given multiple choice options that will tell the company whether the non-compliant break was supervisor- or business-driven, versus the employee forgetting or voluntarily skipping or shortening their rest or meal break, or taking the meal late (or forgot to clock back in).
The attestation is especially helpful for rest breaks, because otherwise there is no other record of having taken rest breaks. Do not require employees to record their rest breaks. In my experience, there will be at least a 50% failure rate because employees simply forget to record their otherwise properly-taken rest breaks. It is paid time, so there is no legal requirement to record them.
Be consistent
Consider implementing a 2-4-6 schedule, where workers take rest breaks at 2 and 6 hours, and a meal break at 4 hours. It’s an easy way to remember the schedule. Also, consider ensuring that the meal break is scheduled at 4 hours or perhaps no later than 4.5 hours into the day, so that if employees work past the regularly scheduled meal break time, they still never go past the end of the fifth hour.
Explain what a “net 10-minute” rest break is: time getting to and from the break area doesn’t count toward the 10 minutes.
Educate, document and know the law
Lastly, educate supervisors so they understand their role in the monitoring process and why it’s so important to avoid penalties and lawsuits. Create effective and workable electronic and paper trails, especially using attestations. Pay premiums when warranted and show them properly on the pay stub. Don’t round time.
Educating all workers on these details will help employers protect themselves from the sometimes-overwhelming amount of “gotchas” in California wage and hour law.
Jonathan Fraser Light is the managing partner at Camarillo-based LightGabler, specializing exclusively in representing employers in all aspects of employment law. He may be reached at [email protected].
Corinne Spencer has dedicated two portions of her career at Encino-based Pearlman, Brown & Wax: first as a law clerk and then associate in 2012 and then returning in 2019. In the interim, Spencer worked as counsel for downtown-based Big Law empire Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith.
Back at PBW, she chairs the firm’s labor and employment group, working with employers in compliance, risk assessment and litigation issues. She handles Fair Employment and Housing Act cases, wage-and-hour class actions and Private Attorneys General Act cases.
Tell me about your labor and employment practice and how you built it. I started my legal career as a law clerk at Pearlman, Brown and Wax many years ago. I quickly knew that I wanted to focus on labor and employment law and spent time shadowing the lawyers in the department.
Fast forward seven years after becoming a lawyer, I was invited back to take on the role as chair of the labor and employment department at PBW the end of 2019. I feel as if this firm has truly helped me grow as a lawyer, and as a person. I am proud to have come full circle and now be a partner and leader within the firm.
What’s a signature legal victory for you? I have spent many years fighting over arbitration agreements. It is a particularly good feeling to win on a motion to compel arbitration as it is an early triumph for an employer to limit the scope and scale of a lawsuit. I have prevailed on many motions to compel arbitration, but a signature legal victory was prevailing on one at the Court of Appeal a couple of years ago. We knew the trial judge had made an error in his ruling and prevailing at the appellate level was a satisfying victory.
Conversely, is there a loss that was nevertheless formative for your career? I unsuccessfully opposed a discovery motion for a client where we believed we had proper grounds to withhold the information sought. It really caused me to take a step back and focus on the dispute and the purpose of discovery moving forward. Sometimes, we fight just to fight in litigation. However, winning is often avoiding the smaller fights to accomplish the ultimate goal in the client’s best interest.
What’s it like to work labor and employment in a state like California? It is a challenge to defend employers in the state of California. Many clients are frustrated by the volume of litigation and employee-friendly laws that make operating in the state very costly. We are constantly looking for proactive measures to keep clients insulated from risk from both the policy and practice standpoints. In addition to drafting and revising policies, we offer trainings to clients to ensure that management and employees understand and follow those policies.
What has kept you busy so far this year? I have been busy reviewing and revising policies for clients, especially around diversity, equity and inclusion. It has been a challenge navigating the issue when the federal government and California have such polar ideologies. Further, the Private Attorneys General Act, or PAGA, landscape has been keeping me busy coming up with new ways to defend clients following the PAGA reform in June of last year and evolving case law.
In the sense that rising operating costs can result in cutbacks, do you anticipate the Trump Administration’s tariffs to add your workload at all? Yes, I think businesses and clients will be taking a hard look at how to juggle operating costs and how to reduce overhead with the economy and global affairs in flux. I anticipate many discussions with clients about how to avoid risk from employees and former employees.
What are unique challenges to the labor and employment landscape in Los Angeles? Los Angeles is a very diverse, populous city and employers need to be mindful of what might be considered progressive rules, regulations and guidelines at the county and city levels. We also have a significant entertainment industry so navigating the employment issues arising out of film and television, such as misclassification or contractor issues, is a unique challenge.
How has your firm empowered your career and practice? My firm has really empowered me to take the department to new heights and has allowed me the space to expand our expertise into environmental and corporate law. This has helped me offer holistic solutions to clients that not only mitigate and eliminate risk as employers, but as business owners as well.
An Avelo Airlines plane lands at Hollywood Burbank Airport in 2021. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Avelo)
Passenger traffic at the four airports serving Los Angeles County fell 4% during the first quarter of 2025, marking their worst performance since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data released by the airport governing authorities.
A total of 20.1 million passengers went through the gates at Los Angeles International, Ontario International, Hollywood Burbank and Long Beach airports from January through March. That tally was down 4.2% from the same three months last year and down 14.5% from the same period in pre-pandemic 2019.
Continuing difficulties at domestic air carriers, particularly Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co., along with increasing threats of tariffs and a global trade war fed into the passenger declines. The dismal performance spread to air cargo as the 730,000 metric tons of cargo handled at the four airports was down 3% from the same quarter last year. This drop came despite a surge in cargo at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in advance of the expected tariffs.
LAX, Long Beach airports turn in poorest performances
LAX saw the biggest hemorrhaging of passengers during the first quarter as 802,000 fewer passengers went through the gates than the same period last year for a drop of 4.7%. Domestic passenger traffic fell by 6%, while international passenger counts declined by nearly 2%.
These numbers mark a continuing acceleration of the downturn in passengers at the region’s biggest airport over the past year and have put off into the indefinite future any hope of recovering to pre-pandemic passenger levels. In fact, the airport is moving backwards in its attempt to make up the ground lost to the pandemic: a year ago, the airport was about 10% short of pre-pandemic 2019 passenger counts; now, it’s nearly 20% short.
To give a sense of the magnitude of the drop, consider this: in pre-pandemic 2019, LAX ranked third in Montreal-based Airport Council International’s annual rankings of the world’s 10 busiest airports with 88 million passengers; the airport trailed only Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and Beijing’s Capital International.
In the council’s latest ranking based on last year’s data that was released last month, LAX’s tally of 76.6 million passengers didn’t even make the Top 10.
Last summer, under the direction of new Chief Executive John Ackerman, Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that runs LAX, set up a unit to promote air travel to the airport. But since then, the passenger declines have only accelerated.
While LAX has suffered the biggest numeric declines in passengers, Long Beach Airport takes the dubious crown of the biggest percentage drop. During the first quarter, roughly 865,000 passengers went through the gates at Long Beach, down exactly 10% from the same period last year.
Unlike LAX, there’s a single culprit for Long Beach Airport’s troubles: Southwest Airlines, which dominates the airport with nearly 90% of all flights. The airline has struggled with a shortage of planes and increased competition from budget carriers.
Long Beach Airport Director Cynthia Guidry tried to put these numbers in a longer-term perspective.
“The passenger numbers for March are slightly down compared to our record-breaking year in 2024, but still very strong when compared to the past few years,” Guidry said.
Minuscule gains at Hollywood Burbank and Ontario
While Hollywood Burbank and Ontario International airports did post gains in passengers during the first quarter, those increases were incremental: 0.57% at Ontario and 0.45% at Hollywood Burbank.
For Ontario, this is unfamiliar territory since the pandemic. The Inland Empire airport was the first to recover from the pandemic and continued to turn in strong increases in passengers through last year, pushing the airport to 27% above pre-pandemic 2019’s level.
But the growth engine largely sputtered during the first quarter. Southwest is the airport’s largest carrier, with roughly 39% passenger share in March, so that air carrier’s problems had some impact at the airport.
Hollywood Burbank Airport, meanwhile, ended the quarter strong, with a 5% gain in passengers in March over the same month last year. That was the largest percentage gain among the four airports for that month.
Cargo volume at airports
While cargo tonnages at the four airports serving L.A. County were down 3% during the first quarter, the performance was mixed at the two airports that together handle 98% of all the air cargo – LAX and Ontario International.
Cargo tonnage at LAX fell nearly 7% during the first quarter to 528,000 metric tons compared to the same period last year, while cargo tonnage shot up 8% at Ontario to 191,000 metric tons.
Boss: Teledyne Executive Chair Robert Mehrabian. (Photo c/o Teledyne Technologies)
Teledyne Technologies Inc. just beat Wall Street expectations on earnings and revenue for the first quarter.
The Thousand Oaks-based aerospace, marine and digital imaging products manufacturer reported on April 23 an adjusted net income of $234 million ($4.95 a share) for the quarter ending March 30, compared with an adjusted net income of $218 million ($4.55) in the same period of the previous year. Revenue increased by 7% from the first quarter of the prior year to $1.45 billion.
Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected earnings of $4.92 on revenue of $1.42 billion.
Robert Mehrabian, the executive chairman of Teledyne, said he was pleased with the first quarter results.
“First quarter sales reflected organic growth in every segment, coupled with the contribution from recent acquisitions,” Mehrabian said in a statement. “In addition, quarter-end backlog was an all-time record, as orders exceeded sales for the sixth consecutive quarter.”
Business segments see gains
All four of Teledyne’s business segments had an increase in revenue in the first quarter. They were led by aerospace and defense electronics at a jump of 30% over the first quarter of last year.
The first quarter also saw $42.3 million worth of incremental defense electronics sales from recent acquisitions, including a deal in late January for the aerospace and defense electronics businesses of Excelitas Technologies Corp. in Pittsburgh for $710 million.
Among those businesses was the Qioptiq brand based in the United Kingdom, and the U.S.-based advanced electronic systems business. The acquired business will be included in Teledyne’s aerospace and defense electronics segment.
Lights: The Santa Monica Pier’s Ferris wheel draws tourists and locals to the area.
California is home to at least three of the most-visited theme parks – Disney California Adventure Park, Universal Studios Hollywood and Disneyland– on the globe, and they draw millions annually to the Golden State’s sunny shores.
Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure and Universal Studios Hollywood are all ranked in the top 25 theme parks globally by estimated attendance. While Disneyland is in Orange County, its operator the Walt Disney Co. is based in Los Angeles County, with a headquarters in Burbank.
And beyond traditional large-scale theme parks, the Santa Monica Pier’s Pacific Park is also a boon for tourists who are seeking a ride by the oceanside.
Even as costs rise across the country, people are still continuing to spend on thrills. Average attendance at the top 10 theme parks worldwide was up 30% year-over-year in 2023, according to the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM’s annual report released last year.Â
Disneyland was the second-most visited park in the world last year, behind the Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom park in Florida, according to AECOM’s data.Â
Expanding the parks
Companies that operate these parks are also increasingly investing in their spending to expand them or keep the theming fresh for repeat visitors.
Comcast, which owns Universal and its parks, spends millions to operate its parksannually, often with a narrow profit margin.
Disney is also investing more heavily in its parks to keep visitors entertained. Operators keep spending more to operate their theme parks and add new attractions each year and the investments are expected to keep paying off. Revenue from amusement parks in the United States is expected to grow by about 4.2% annually through 2030, according to Grand View Research. Domestic parks are projected to bring in some $36.9 billion by that year, analysts predicted. Last year, the market generated about $28.4 billion.
Disney
The Walt Disney Co.’sduo parks may be located in Anaheim, but the entertainment giant is headquartered in Burbank. With $2.5 billion in revenue as of the end of 2024, Disney is one of the biggest companies in L.A.
Disneyland welcomed some 17.2 million visitors in 2023, up 2.2% year-over-year, AECOM reported.
Disney California Adventure Park, which opened in 2001, saw slightly fewer guests that year – roughly 10 million – but that represented an 11% year over year increase.
Guest attendance at Disney’s parks nationwide were “comparable” to the prior years but those who did attend are spending more, the company said in its earnings report.
Domestic parks saw a 3% year-over-year rise in revenue to about $5.5 billion in 2024, Disney reported.Â
Unlike Disneyland proper, the California Adventure Park sells alcohol throughout the grounds, which makes it a favored attraction for adult attendees. The park hosts an annual food and wine festival and is home to yearly Lunar New Year celebrations.
Event: Mary Poppins at Disney’s 60th Diamond Celebration at Disneyland.
New rides take shape
Construction on two new rides for Avenger’s Campus, the Marvel-themed area within Disney California Adventure, began this year. The park is also creating its first ride based on the 2017 film “Coco,” which will begin construction next year. Plans for two rides based on the Avatar series are also underway. In 2023, Disney said it would double its investments in parks over the next decade to about $60 billion and much of those costs went to expanding domestic and global park operations as well as its cruise lines.
Disneyland opened in 1955. In addition to the park, it also operates the adjacent Downtown Disney shopping center, where retailers rent space to operate. There are also three hotels on the property, including the original Disneyland Hotel, Pixar Place Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa.
An expensive outing
It’s not getting any cheaper to visit these parks, though. Disneyland increased the price of its tickets for both parks last year by about 6%.
Prices for the least expensive tier of Magic Key passes that allow unlimited entries to the parks increased by about 20% last year.
Park Hopper tickets that let guests see both Disneyland and California Adventure sell for $75 per day before tax, while the annual Magic Key passes are pricier – a SoCal only version of the pass is about $600 annually, or $34.17 per month for California residents.
The most expensive tier of the Magic Key passes goes for $1,749 annually.
Magic Mountain
A favorite among thrill-seeking teens and older adrenaline junkies, Six Flags operates four parks across California, including Six Flags Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita.
Six Flags has had many owners over the years, including the Pennsylvania Railroad and Time Warner. It merged with its former rival, Cedar Fair, in July 2024.
Since then, all 42 Six Flags parks in North America have been operated by Six Flags Entertainment Corp., which also operates Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park and its corresponding Soak City waterpark in Buena Park.
Ride: Goliath at Six Flags in Santa Clarita. (Photo by David Sprague)
Attendance has been increasing
Six Flags parks in North America saw an uptick in attendance in 2024, with about 41.6 million guests pouring in the gates, up nearly 44% year over year. Across all Six Flags parks, revenue was up more than 42% to $2.5 billion in 2024.
Magic Mountain is the better-known park at the L.A.-area Six Flags, but it also operates the adjacent Hurricane Harbor Los Angeles. The water park opens for the season in May and features an array of thrill rides including the six-story Bonzai Pipelines ride, which drops riders 50 feet in free fall into another 200 winding feet of pitch-black slide.
To visit Magic Mountain, daily tickets range from $30 to $50 before tax. The park also sells season passes that are priced from $80 annually to about $195.
Six Flags also took steps to become greener; In 2023 it broke ground on a 12.37-megawatt solar carport and energy storage facility at Magic Mountain.
The rides at Six Flags Magic Mountain continue to evolve and one of its oldest recently closed. Unfortunately for fans of the Man of Steel, Superman: The Escape roller coaster was permanently closed this year. The ride opened in 1997 and was revitalized in 2011, adding a backwards launch that thrilled riders from around the country. But the 29 year-old ride’s parts were becoming obsolete, and the park shut it down last month, although the adjacent drop tower ride Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom remains open.
While Six Flags Entertainment Corp.’s foot traffic at parks is up, it posted a net loss in 2024 due to roughly $71.2 million in costs related to its merger with Cedar Fair.
Universal Studios Hollywood
Nestled within the unincorporated area of Universal City adjacent to Studio City is Universal Studios Hollywood.
Opened in 1964 as a theme park, Universal’s roots in the area date back to 1912 when it first established a movie studio. The L.A. studio lot opened three years later.
Over the years, the Universal Studios Hollywood park has played a key role in advertising and revitalizing the studio’s plethora of intellectual property.
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg is one of the wealthiest people in Los Angeles, in part because of his stake in Universal Studios – he receives 2% of all ticket sales in exchange for use of his films including “Jurassic Park” within the park.
The popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which contains five Harry Potter attractions, is contained at Universal Studios’ upper lot.
Other attractions at Universal’s upper lot include a “Despicable Me”-themed obstacle course called Minion Mayhem, a dark ride themed after “The Secret Life of Pets” and a motion-simulated Simpsons ride.
The park also operates the DreamWorks Theatre, where it screens shows and films created by DreamWorks Animation.
A tram tour of the Universal Studios backlot is also included, featuring content from “King Kong” and Spielberg’s “Jaws.”
Universal Studios’ lower lot is home to Super Nintendo World, which houses numerous rides based on the famed Italian plumber and his friends, in addition to other rides. It is also working on a new ride based on the Fast and the Furious franchise slated to open next year.
The one-hour Studio Tour is a unique portion of the theme park and is included with admission. It’s also a long-running tradition at the studio; founder Carl Laemmle first allowed guests backstage in 1915. Sets on view include Jupiter’s Claim from the film “Nope,” the “War of the Worlds” plane crash, the Bates Motel and Amity Island from “Jaws,” where a robotic version of the infamous Great White will leap out of the water at the tram. In addition to the sets and facades, the tour also showcases Universal’s movie magic, with demonstrations of special effects including a mock underground earthquake and a flash flood.
Studio: Park goers with Doc Brown at Universal Studios Hollywood.(Photo by David Sprague)
Revenue holds steady
Comcast Universal reported its revenue from theme parks globally was up just 0.1% year over year in 2024 to $2.3 billion, but that was partly due to costs from expanding its Orlando, Florida-based park. Operating expenses for all Universal’s theme parks were up 2.4% year over year to $1.5 billion last year.
Every fall, both the Hollywood and Orlando parks open at night for Halloween Horror Nights, which includes limited haunted house attractions based on its freakier IP. In past years this has included content from film and TV hits like “Stranger Things,” “The Last of Us,” “The Purge,” and Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” Building on demand for this type of event, Universal introduced Fan Fest Nights this month, which will offer guests story-based experiences themed around content including “Star Trek,” “Back to the Future” and “Dungeons & Dragons.”
Universal Studios welcomed at least 9.7 million visitors last year, about a 15% increase annually, according to AECOM data.
Pacific Park
While not as large in size as some of the other parks on this list, Pacific Park is a worthy inclusion not just because it’s local – it’s the only pier-based amusement park left on the West Coast and one of few nationwide.
Pacific Park, which opened in 1996, is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and is the only admission-free theme park in this special report, and guests can mill about and enjoy the atmosphere without paying if they like.
The Pier is owned by the City of Santa Monica, and the amusement park was bought by private equity firm SC Holdings in March 2024. While the sale price wasn’t disclosed, the new owner said in a statement that “over the next five years (it) will make $10 million in capital investments” into the park.
SANTA MONICA, USA – MAR 16, 2019: people enjoy the ocean park at Santa Monica pier by night. The site is an iconic 100-year-old landmark for California visitors.
Big advisory board
Pacific Park’s board of advisors includes former Shake Shack chief executive David Swinghamer and Lars Liebst, theformer chief executive of Denmark-based Tivoli Gardens, the second-oldest theme park in the world. Rides are priced individually and run from $8 to $17 per ticket. There is an option to purchase an annual weekday pass for $75 per year, or a premium annual pass for $100 per year that guarantees unlimited rides and a 20% discount on purchases.
Plastered on postcards far and wide, the 85-feet tall Ferris Wheel is one of Pacific Park’s main attractions. It is actually the second wheel at the park; the original had 20 gondolas and was featured in Spielberg’s movie “1941,” but was auctioned off on eBay in 2008 to make room for a new, solar-powered Pacific Wheel, the first of its kind in the world. The park is home to 12 rides including the West Coaster roller coaster and Seaside Swing.
Right under the Santa Monica Pier is the Heal the Bay Aquarium, open Wednesday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
As of 2024, Pacific Pier drew an estimated 10 million visitors per year.
Mattel
El Segundo-based Mattel Inc. might not yet operate a theme park in California, but the company has big plans for turning its intellectual property into theme parks elsewhere.
The forthcoming Mattel Adventure Park is scheduled to open later this year in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. It will feature rides based on popular Mattel toys including Barbie, Hot Wheels, Thomas the Tank Engine and even the card game Uno.
Mattel’s park was slated to open last year but faced delays. It is part of the larger, forthcoming VAI Resort, a $1 billion project that will include 1,100 rooms and is expected to open its doors in the fourth quarter.
Planned rides for the Mattel Adventure Park include an 84-foot-tall roller coaster called Hot Wheels Bone Shaker, and another corkscrew coaster called the Hot Wheels Twin Mill Racer. It will also include an 18-hole mini golf course themed after the Magic 8 Ball and a laser tag arena based on He-Man and Skeletor.
The park will also include a retail shop with holograms that lets kids design their own Barbies called the Barbie Beach House–while bored parents can lounge at the upstairs Barbie Rooftop Bar and restaurant.
Ynon Kreiz, chief executive of Mattel, previously called the company’s first par a “capital-light approach where we license our brands and participate in different forms in the economics of the park and, of course, can sell product there.”
“This is a highly accretive business line, especially given the strength of our brands,” he said.
Rendering: Mattel’s planned Adventure Park features a variety of Mattel IP. (Rendering c/o Mattel)
Kansas park planned
Mattel is also planning to open another Adventure Park in Bonner Springs, Kansas in 2026. The Kansas park is expected to cost roughly $487 million, more than the $260 million expected price tag of the Arizona park.
The location is expected to span 180 acres and include many of the same attractions as the Arizona park. Adult guests can get revved up at the Hot Wheels Legends Bar and Grill, which is planned to include
“Mattel Adventure Park Kansas City will bring our iconic brands to life with epic roller coasters, family-friendly attractions, an immersive theatre, themed dining, and so much more,” Josh Silverman, Mattel’s chief franchise officer previously said of the park.
Product: Kandu helps patients recover from strokes.
A newly merged company focused on helping patients recover from strokes has emerged in Van Nuys.
Earlier this month, two companies focused on providing tech-enabled therapy and services to stroke patients merged: Van Nuys-based Neurolutions Inc., which has developed brain-computer interface technology, and Campbell-based telehealth and remote monitoring company Kandu Health.
The newly combined company, which has taken the name Kandu Inc., is headquartered in Van Nuys, and has about 80 employees. At its helm is Leo Petrossian, who until the merger was chief executive of Neurolutions. Kirsten Carroll, the chief executive of Kandu Health, is now the chief marketing officer for the company.
Simultaneously announced on April 8 with the merger was the closing of a $30 million financing round, led by New York-based Ally Bridge Group and Fremont-based AMED Ventures. The money will support the commercialization effort of the Neurolutions brain-computer interface technology along with an expanded suite of services for recovering stroke patients.
Developing separate paths to treat stroke patients
Neurolutions was founded in 2007 around the development of non-invasive brain-computer interface technology to treat patients who suffered from strokes. The technology uses electroencephalographic signals from the unaffected side of the brain that are captured in a helmet-like device and then transmitted to a wearable device around the hand and arm affected by the stroke. The aim is to improve the motor functions of stroke patients.
Other electrostimulation devices under development to treat stroke patients generally involve surgical implantation of electrodes inside the brain or spinal cord. The Neurolutions approach does not involve surgery.
In 2020, Neurolutions’ technology received breakthrough device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Meanwhile, in 2022, Kandu Health was spun out of Campbell-based Imperative Care, a medtech company that uses connected innovations to augment care for people suffering from stroke or other vascular diseases.
Kandu Health’s focus has been exclusively on technologies to help patients recover from strokes once they are sent home from hospitals or other acute care facilities.
Historically, post-acute stroke care has been fragmented and largely short-term, leading to degradation of patient quality of life and more frequent return visits to hospitals, the announcement said.
“Despite years of improvements in stroke treatment technology and acute intervention, our system of care has not yet produced meaningful improvements in patients’ functional outcomes following hospital discharge,” Demetrius Lopes, a neurosurgeon with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, said in the announcement.
By combining the infrastructure and technologies of the two companies, the hope is that Kandu Inc. can provide a full range of services to stroke survivors, according to the merger announcement.
Offices: ServiceTitan is based in Glendale. (Photo by David Sprague)
ServiceTitan Inc., the Glendale-based tech company for the trades, announced a partnership with Cobalt Service Partners on Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
While ServiceTitan has made considerable inroads through several partnerships over its 18-year-long run as a company, its collaboration with New York-based Cobalt Service Partners represents its ongoing foray into large scale corporate enterprises – and the valuable behavioral data it garners. When ServiceTitan announced its third quarter fiscal 2025 earnings in January – a first for the company since its long-awaited initial public offering – cofounder and president of ServiceTitan Vahe Kuzoyan said the company’s insight into its users’ methodology allows ServiceTitan to build, acquire and partner with valuable tools custom-built for the unique needs of its customers.
“The breadth of our platform gives us a significant advantage…” Kuzoyan said on the call. “We have visibility into our customers’ entire workflow. We know their largest challenges and can then work to deliver solutions with high ROI over time.”
The partnership
That’s where Cobalt Service Partners comes in. The brand, a holding company with a dozen businesses under its umbrella, works in the building automation and access controls space – another way of saying doors, alarms, gates, security systems and the like – for commercial properties. Those companies operate in the full cycle from installation to ongoing maintenance for a variety of different types of buildings, like office spaces, manufacturing plants and hospitals.
“What excites me most about partnering with ServiceTitan is that their technology is built for scale, and we don’t have to compromise on industry-specific workflows, giving us the best of both worlds,” Chris Kalna, the vice president of technology at Cobalt Service Partners, said in a statement. “…ServiceTitan is not just a software partner. They are the backbone of our tech stack.”
As a successful first mover, ServiceTitan has amassed a trove of customer data it has been using to create a suite of artificial intelligence-backed “pro” offerings that allow companies to better market their services, schedule appointments and price products amid a fluctuating market that has been impacted by a global trade war.
“What’s been unique about ServiceTitan over the years is we’ve really developed a very heavy enterprise grade piece of technology in terms of the uptime, security, stability and our API endpoints,” said Alex Kablanian, the general manager of commercial and construction markets at ServiceTitan. “That’s helped us build a really integrated ecosystem with accounting partners, with payroll providers, with insert-name-of-trade-specific-tool-that-exists-out-there that’s likely either a ServiceTitan-built, a partner-built, or a customer-built integration that exists.”
The trade war
That intelligence will soon become more important than ever as the trade war impacts imported materials into the United States. ServiceTitan conducted a sentiment report in early April with over 1,000 commercial contractors in the electric, plumbing and HVAC trades – 64% of those surveyed said that the increased cost of supplies would make forecasting margins bookkeeping difficult, and 43% said they would focus on diversifying what kinds of services they would offer in an attempt to weather the economic storm. According to ServiceTitan, the need to innovate is driving companies to adopt software, and ServiceTitan is ready to build it.
“Our mission as a company is to build the operating system of the trades, not just for this year, but for decades,” Kablanian said. “…what we talk about a lot internally is, whether it’s situation X or situation Y, how do we give our customers the tools they need to navigate that?”
OpEd: On Preventing Meal, Rest Break Lawsuits
Human resources managers’ eyes may glaze over when they see another headline about meal and rest breaks. Yet, meal and rest break issues are the bane of every HR manager’s existence and are front and center in virtually every class action, PAGA or single-employee wage case. Here are some concrete suggestions to avoid such claims.
Clarify when meal breaks start and stop
Make clear when meals are scheduled and for how long. Employers and employees are often confused about “must begin by the end of the fifth hour” language. Use an example. If a shift starts at 7 a.m., the latest an employee can begin their meal is at 11:59 a.m.
Consider using a lock-out system so employees can’t clock back in from their meal break until a full 30 minutes have elapsed. There will never be a short meal. If your system can accommodate it, provide a 2-to-3-minute paid grace period for clocking back in.
Don’t allow bosses to fill out time sheets
If employees are in the field (e.g., construction, janitorial), don’t allow the foremen to fill out field sheets that cover meal times. Each crew member must sign off on their meal. It’s too easy for plaintiff attorneys to poke holes in those field sheets if employees are not accountable for documenting their own meal breaks.
Pay for personal phone usage
If employees are tracking their time in the field, it’s often done electronically using a phone app. Remember to pay employees for the use of their personal phone when they use the app.
Never use automatic meal break deductions
Courts hate automatic meal break deductions. Employers can be tempted to use them in more static environments like manufacturing or not-so-easy-to-track environments (e.g., in-the-field workers). Never use them. This rule applies even if all employees stop work at the same time. You can never be sure that everyone stopped or started their meal break at the same time.
No rounding
Relatively recent case law has made clear that employers can never round a meal break, such as 29 minutes up to 30 minutes. Employers should never be rounding any time at any point in the day.
Correctly use meal break waivers
Meal break waivers are useful for short days that are six hours or less, or longer days of 10 hours or more. A new California appellate opinion in April reaffirmed what we had always thought, but what was in dispute: a meal break waiver, signed only once at the outset of employment, is sufficient, so long as it is clear that the employee has the power to revoke the waiver at any time. Don’t make the waiver revocable in writing or on 24 hours’ notice.
Although the court did not expressly address it, there’s no reason to believe that there would be a different result for waiving the second meal in the same manner after working more than 10 hours. Don’t confuse meal waivers with rarely-applicable on-duty meal agreements.
Use an attestation
Other than the timesheet itself, a daily meal and rest break attestation is perhaps the most effective way to protect employers from meal and rest break claims. Many of the electronic payroll systems can accommodate an attestation, done daily. When using an attestation, questions regarding meals and rest breaks appear electronically as the employee clocks out. Employees cannot finish clocking out for the day until they finish answering a few simple questions. Attestations should be daily. Attestations weekly or at the end of a pay period are relatively useless and courts generally discount their value.
Be careful about what the attestation says, however, as I have encountered several situations recently in which even larger payroll services or the company internally has created an attestation that does no good. The attestation should pop up when the system recognizes a defective meal (short, late or nonexistent), or can simply appear every day as the employee clocks out. Employees are required to acknowledge whether they received their meals and rest breaks properly. If not, they’re given multiple choice options that will tell the company whether the non-compliant break was supervisor- or business-driven, versus the employee forgetting or voluntarily skipping or shortening their rest or meal break, or taking the meal late (or forgot to clock back in).
The attestation is especially helpful for rest breaks, because otherwise there is no other record of having taken rest breaks. Do not require employees to record their rest breaks. In my experience, there will be at least a 50% failure rate because employees simply forget to record their otherwise properly-taken rest breaks. It is paid time, so there is no legal requirement to record them.
Be consistent
Consider implementing a 2-4-6 schedule, where workers take rest breaks at 2 and 6 hours, and a meal break at 4 hours. It’s an easy way to remember the schedule. Also, consider ensuring that the meal break is scheduled at 4 hours or perhaps no later than 4.5 hours into the day, so that if employees work past the regularly scheduled meal break time, they still never go past the end of the fifth hour.
Explain what a “net 10-minute” rest break is: time getting to and from the break area doesn’t count toward the 10 minutes.
Educate, document and know the law
Lastly, educate supervisors so they understand their role in the monitoring process and why it’s so important to avoid penalties and lawsuits. Create effective and workable electronic and paper trails, especially using attestations. Pay premiums when warranted and show them properly on the pay stub. Don’t round time.
Educating all workers on these details will help employers protect themselves from the sometimes-overwhelming amount of “gotchas” in California wage and hour law.
Jonathan Fraser Light is the managing partner at Camarillo-based LightGabler, specializing exclusively in representing employers in all aspects of employment law. He may be reached at [email protected].