What a great idea.
Restaurants are suffering so why not add a 20% surcharge to the bill.

Yeah, that will help….
I sure hope idiocracy like this will help wake up this state and dump the libs.

Link

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston wants to add a 20% service charge to local restaurant tabs — and then tax it — to help restaurants cope with the city’s minimum wage and promote what he called pay equity among tipped and non-tipped employees.

On Monday, Johnston told City Cast Denver, a popular podcast, that he has already been discussing the idea with restaurant owners. He didn’t say whether they are on board. He also did not discuss if increasing people's dinner costs would decrease restaurant visits.

Johnston has incurred the ire of some local restauranteurs, who this month penned a letter expressing their frustrations with the city for everything from public safety worries and negative perceptions of downtown to parking and infrastructure needs.

They pointed to a series of stabbings on the 16th Street Mall over a January weekend that left two dead and two more injured.

"You ran your entire campaign platform on restoring our Downtown Denver business districts," Dave Query, owner of Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar, said in his letter to Johnston. "It has gotten worse since you took the position of Mayor, even though you have received $550M towards stewarding it in a different direction."

He added: “This is the current vibe and energy on our downtown streets, and our long-time LoDo and Larimer guests are now driving to Cherry Creek and NorthField and Golden for dinner and entertainment.”

“We know it's a challenge,” Johnston told City Cast Denver, noting that restaurant labor costs have increased by 200% over the past decade. “We've had 400 restaurants close in Denver over the last three or four years and we know that a big part of that is the increase in the minimum wage, and we want folks to make more money.”

The challenge, he said, is ensuring an equitable and livable wage, while allowing restaurants to thrive.

Johnston said a recent restaurant tour group told him that wage disparities exist across the industry, with tipped servers making as much as $120,000 in annual salary because they have both the city’s minimum wage, plus tips, compared to the back-of-the-house staffers, such as cooks and dishwashers, who, he said, make $40,000.

At the state level, efforts are afoot to institute a "tip offset" in jurisdictions that have adopted a minimum wage that is higher than the state's threshold.

Under House Bill 1208, local governments with minimum wages above the state's $11.79 per hour for tipped employees — currently Denver, Boulder, and Edgewater — would be required to impose "tip offsets" equal to $3.02, plus the difference between the local and the state's minimum wage amounts.

In Denver, the bill would lower restaurant workers' minimum wage by $4 an hour, according to a fiscal analysis.

While the bill allows local governments to adjust their tip offsets, they cannot reduce them by less than $3.02 or more than 50 cents per year or increase them by an amount that would result in an employee earning less than minimum wage, minus $3.02.

Sponsors said the bill aims to address the unintended consequences of a 2019 law that allowed local governments to establish minimum wages above the state threshold. Critics said it cuts wages at a time of soaring expenses for workers.

At the local level, Johnston suggested that collecting a 20% service charge would generate revenue that could be spread equally across all employees.

“But what's interesting for us, as the city, is you could pool those service charges. You could share it with all the staff,” Johnston said on the podcast. “Interestingly for us, if you had a service charge that comes above the line in the bill, which means it's also taxed — if you had a $100 tab and now you put a 20% service charge, you pay $120, and we tax $120.”

Johnston said the city could then share revenue from the “marginal new tax” back with the restaurants.

“We'll take some small additional revenue, but we could support the restaurant's institution,” he said. “At the same time, you're supporting dollars back to the individuals.”

More than 200 restaurants closed across Colorado last year. Some 20,000 restaurant workers in Denver lost their jobs in the previous three years, as 22% of the city's restaurants had shut down.

A spokesperson for the mayor's office told The Denver Gazette that Johnston will continue to partner with businesses, restaurants and residents to ensure downtown is a safe and thriving part of the community.

“But I think the thing for us to wrestle with, as people who are progressives, is if we do nothing, you should not be surprised to keep seeing restaurant closures around the city going forward,” Johnston said.

This is like running up to help someone who's choking and shooting them in the head instead of giving them the Heimlich maneuver. These people just don't get it. The Seattle subreddits are loaded with people bitching about all this exact stuff with the added restaurant taxes and fees and how they, in turn, are adding their own surcharges. Looks like Denver is going to try to top their stupid.

I do not know anyone who has gone to Denver for over 20 years other than through the airport.

What a disaster.

Talk about a mayor for the people! Actually doing something to help his constituents by taking real action, instead of just “talk.” Pity no one else could see the pathway to restaurant success.

Denver’s lucky to have him.

This idiot thinks people are going to pay a 20% service charge AND tip 20% on top of that???

He will kill the restaurant industry off in that city in no time flat.

Add a tax, and then tax it. Yeah, that oughta work.

quote:

Sponsors said the bill aims to address the unintended consequences of a 2019 law…

Is anyone stopping to think what the unintended consequences of this one will be?

Remember when they said that $15 minimum wage would save them?

Up next, tax grocery food by 50 percent so it’s cheaper to eat out.

Of course, making things more expensive always increases business.

My god, Econ 101 you idiot.

quote:

the previous three years, as 22% of the city's restaurants had shut down.

Just let that sink in, now let’s add 20% above the line.

I thought taxing pot was supposed to fix everything. No thanks to any of this!

Living about 50 miles to the north of the cesspool of Denver, this gives us another reason to avoid the place. What a fuckin idiot.

It’s really kind of depressing to see what a shithole Denver has become. Mrs Highlander was from there and even had a loft on the 16th St Mall. We always enjoyed the shops, galleries and restaurants when we went back to visit family. Probably 7-8 years ago we decided to stay at the Marriott on the mall and were appalled by the decay. Everything that made the area great was gone and replaced by addicts, weed shops and nail salons. Haven’t been back downtown since.

quote:

On Monday, Johnston told City Cast Denver, a popular podcast, that he has already been discussing the idea with restaurant owners. He didn’t say whether they are on board. He also did not discuss if increasing people's dinner costs would decrease restaurant visits.

Of course he didn’t because no one who owns a restaurant or any business in the area would be on board with this they know it will crush all business.
He also knows good and well cost of dinner goes up 20% the amount of people eating out will go down.

These people are unreal!

Liberals are beyond stupid. Any rational human being is able to make the same mistake five or six times and realize it's not working. Not liberals.

They just double down and keep on trying the same wrong solution.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over all while expecting a different result."

Liberals are, IMO, clinically insane. It's just that there are so many of them their behavior is ignored.

And the people there that are bitching will STILL “vote blue no matter who”, because democrats good, republicans bad! Well… except maybe for restaurant owners.

Politicians should be required to take ECON101 prior to taking office.

Stand in bucket, lift by handles.

Are people supposed to tip on top of this service charge? Or is it in lieu of tips? Does the service charge get put into a fund to offset the loss of the employees' tips, or into city coffers? Will the servers, knowing they will always get their "cut," lose their incentive to provide good service? Will the exceptional servers who were getting more than 20% (these days that is on the low end) get pissed off and quit? Those last two will accelerate the downward slide, for sure.

posted by bcereuss:

quote:

Talk about a mayor for the people! Actually doing something to help his constituents by taking real action, instead of just “talk.” Pity no one else could see the pathway to restaurant success.

This is the result of Californication.

I grew up in Denver. Used to love going downtown where we would hang out, cruise and party.

These days I live south and don't cross 285 unless it's an absolute necessity. I cannot stand to see what's happened to Denver since the occupy movement. They occupied and never fuckin' left.

I have Broncos season tickets and just used to love going to the games. Every home game. Not so much anymore with the homeless camps in the areas between Auraria and Mile High. I just sell the majority of the tickets and maybe go to one or two games.

Go downtown to eat? We used to do that. No way in hell now. So no worries on my part paying 20% surcharge. The city and state politics are a scourge on the way of life in a once great place to live.