California says restaurants must bake all of their add-on fees into menu prices

Eezyville@sh.itjust.works to News@lemmy.world – 1052 points –
California says restaurants must bake all of their add-on fees into menu prices
wshu.org

Need this nationwide. I hate having fees added on to the price of what I'm ordering.

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Only fees that are entirely optional — like leaving a tip for staff — can be left out of the posted price.

How do you say you’ve never worked as a server without saying you’ve never worked as a server?

Edit: I think there’s a misunderstanding. I’m commenting on describing tips as “entirely optional.” If you can’t afford to tip, don’t eat at a restaurant. Servers are paid below minimum wage because they receive tips.

Second edit: My bad. NY has a tip allowance, and that’s where I waited. I didn’t know it varied so greatly from state to state. California does, in fact, pay their servers $16 per hour minimum.

https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/minimum-wage-tipped-employees-by-state/

Restaurants should be forced to pay their workers a living wage, which is how it works in developed countries. And paying below minimum wage should be illegal.

it's such a fucking joke that they're allowed to pay like $2/hr because they'll make it up in tips. just because customers are nice doesn't mean the employer should get off the hook like that. even the joke federal minimum wage is fuck all, that's like 1-2 sides at a decent restaurant

Agreed. Each state differs on tip allowance. In NY, minimum wage is $15 per hour with a $5 tip allowance. That means employers can pay $10 per hour, expecting servers to make at least $5 per hour in tips. If it’s a slow morning of “coffee only paper readers,” it’s easy to come up short of minimum wage for some hours.

Yeah, and that's a problem. Tip allowance shouldn't be a thing. They should be paid a higher base wage. Yes, a lot of servers would dislike that because they make a lot of money in tips, and they often don't report those tips when it comes to tax time. But that doesn't mean that the system wouldn't be improved by eliminating tipping and increasing wages, like they do in the rest of the world.

Work a Sunday brunch shift and watch the raft of churchies leave nothing but condescending notes, if anything.

Awful. Almost as gross as those fake half bills with scripture on the back.

Holy shit. They give god 10% of their income. This server is “asking” for 18% of the price of their bill. They’re not even remotely the same thing.

I’m generally against tipping, but still do it. I’m way against illogical comparisons like this though.

It’s called tithing. It’s described as giving 10% of your income or possessions to god in the Old Testament.

I’m aware of tithing. I’m saying that 10% of your income in a tithe is not even remotely the same thing as 18% tip for a single purchase. It’s more comparable to a sales tax than a tithe. One is percentage of a total income, the other is a percentage of a purchase.

Holy snark aside... 18% preprinted on the bill? That brunch better included a BJ then. And yes, I'm European.

Parties of 8 or more often have gratuity on the bill like this. It's rare to see it otherwise, unless there's a particular reason (like they know these people never tip).

Rude comment aside, at least that restaurant would have accurate pricing in cali now.

i thought you weren't meant to use the lord's name in vain

The name of the Christian god is Yahweh or Jehovah.

It gets worse than that.

Some of them leave these on the table. Carefully concealing the deception, of course.

That's not even the only type they have available to them:

Servers are paid below minimum wage because they receive tips.

Not true everywhere. For instance Washington requires servers be paid the full minimum wage of $16.28/hr before tips.

California, ie the state this fucking article is about, also mandates the full minimum wage for servers.

Don't take the downvotes too seriously. Your original point was succinct and poignant. On average, lemmy bombs on anyone going against the popular stance. A whole lot of paper activism goes on here.

Your point is valid. Not tipping because "fuck the man" only serves to hurt the servers. From a moral consumer standpoint, there's no winning. You either cut out restaurants entirely, which still fucks the wait staff, or you tip high and hope enough of it ends up in the their pockets.

I'm downvoting because he's wrong about servers getting paid below minimum wage in California. That's true in his shithole state but not ours.

I’m not offended by downvotes, but usually if I’m downvoted there are comments that correlate so I can understand the alternative perspective. Most of the comments in response were servers at first, so I edited for clarity thinking it was a misunderstanding. It took several comments for me to learn that California pays their servers a decent minimum wage.

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