New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy this week signed into law A6246 / S4295, legislation that was passed on the last day of the prior session. Currently, the law applies only to hotel owners, but the possibility that it could be replicated for other industries (including QSRs) is concerning. The law provides significant restrictions on the managerial operations of a successor owner of a hotel in the Garden State. Specifically, it requires successor hotel owners to offer employees under the prior owner continued employment for at least 90 days and mandates that any reduction of the workforce be done only in order of least “seniority and experience.”  It further requires that re-hires also be based on seniority and mandates written performance reviews at the end of the aforementioned 90-day period. In the event an employee’s performance is satisfactory, the successor owner is required to offer the employee continued employment. As we mentioned above, this law only applies to hotel owners at the present time and only in the state of New Jersey, but expect other states or cities to look at replicating it in some fashion.