It seems like the cost of doing business in Hawaii should be shouldered somehow by the large corporations (i.e. publicly traded) without hurting small local businesses. Would it be possible to, for example, require that McDonald's and Burger King pay $15 per hour, while allowing local chains like L&L to pay the state minimum?

My point is that these large corporations seem to structure their wages as "Our C_Os want $1M per year, so our employees can only make $8/hr for our profit line to be under 15% labor cost." instead of paying the employees a wage that makes sense, and then commissioning the bosses based on actual profit.