Denver Mayor Mike Johnston floats 20% service charge to tackle restaurant woes

February 28, 2025, 07:00 AM

trapper189

Let the beatings continue until moral improves.

Seriously, why stop at 20%? If 20% is good 200% must better, no?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189, February 28, 2025 05:49 PM

February 28, 2025, 07:03 AM

chellim1

quote:
Originally posted by 911Boss:
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?

Unintended consequences? Or intended consequences ?

Surely, they can't be that stupid. Some people just want to destroy everything. It's evil.

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor

February 28, 2025, 08:23 AM

PASig

There was this restaurant in Philadelphia that opened to great fanfare maybe like 7 or 8 years ago, their whole schtick was that they would not accept or require tips from customers.

Their waitstaff were supposedly paid a “fair wage“ and menu prices were increased and a “service charge” was added to accomplish this.

It ended up closing less than a year later due to people being upset that they were paying higher prices and had no control over tipping. They also did not attract the best waitstaff because good waiters still made far more with tips working elsewhere than they would at this place.

February 28, 2025, 08:26 AM

nhtagmember

quote:
Originally posted by 911Boss:
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?

What about repealing the 2019 law first?

Naaah, that’s too simple.

February 28, 2025, 09:27 AM

shovelhead

On the topic of plastic card surcharges, did you know that while surcharges are legal on CC use but not debit card use? I just found this out.

Returning from northern Michigan Sunday afternoon I stopped at a bbq place about thirty miles from home (near where my S-I-L used to live, we’d go there occasionally)but haven’t been there since she moved to our town.

Anyhow, they are now charging 3.99% on all transactions except cash. As I normally use my debit card all the time it gave me pause, combined with probably a 25% jump in menu prices.

As she informed me of this I went out to the console, between that and my wallet I came up with the slightly under forty bucks in cash.

But a little digging and remembering a couple of places while charging CC but not Debit Cards a surcharge I found this bit of information that while it is legal to charge a surcharge on credit cards it is not legal on debit cards.

From the Mastercard Q&A site, Visa has the same policy but I could not copy and paste from their page:
Pursuant to a settlement of the U.S. merchant class litigation, Mastercard modified certain rules and business practices to permit U.S. merchants to apply an extra checkout fee, also known as a surcharge, to customers who pay with Mastercard-branded credit cards. The rule change permitting such surcharging went into effect on January 27, 2013. These fees are not allowed on Debit Mastercard or Mastercard prepaid cards.