More than a century ago,
Roy Farmer, 20, went door-to-door in Los Angeles with his bags of home-roasted coffee beans. By the 1930s, Farmer Brothers was selling coffee to restaurants throughout the nation. Today the company employs 1,200 men and women and generates $200 million in annual sales to restaurants, convenience stores, hospitals, hotels and universities.
But after surviving depressions, recessions, earthquakes and wars,
Farmer Brothers is leaving California, finally driven out by high taxes and oppressive regulations.
The company says it’s fleeing in search of a place where business is appreciated. Relocating its corporate headquarters and distribution facilities from to a friendlier location, Farmer Brothers expects to save $15 million a year. Company executives are looking at Dallas and Oklahoma City. The relocation will bear real consequences for California. Nearly 350 workers will lose their well-paying jobs in Los Angeles alone.
Farmer Brothers is following Toyota, whose U.S. sales and marketing headquarters was barely a mile from the company’s main office, and has gone to Texas. Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, eBay, Occidental Petroleum and firearms retailer RifleGear followed. Nissan bailed to Tennessee.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/17/editorial-businesses-flee-californias-high-taxes-a/