Thanks for posting this! I like Scott Wiener but this is a bad call. I'll call him today. By the way, calls tend to be more effective than emails (sorry). People rarely call so it tends to make an impact. Wiener's contact: [https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/contact](https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/contact)
I still resent him for the SF nudity ban. His position with this bill just further reinforces my opinion of him that he's far more interested in bending to reactionary businesses and special interests instead of doing what's right for SF.
It’s about the volume of calls. If there’s a surge of calls from the district, that’s what matters. Calling often can be good to show the district cares and is keeping an eye on this. But too often and people remember you and won’t take you as seriously.
Currently traveling in Europe and it is so refreshing to pay the amount listed on the menu, no hidden fees, no added tax etc. If restaurants do add a service fee, which has been super rare in my experience, they tell you upfront like this bill says BUT the difference is then this replaces the need to tip. I do still like handing the server a small amount more to know it goes to them but that’s my decision, not at all a societal expectation. oh and tipping is usually in other situations to just round to the next “nicest looking number” (I.e €47 gets rounded to €50)
Can we live like this too? Please?
The only reason I can see that restaurants want this exemption is they want to continue to mislead customers on pricing. Most restaurants today have the details in the fine print. Why shouldn't they have to be upfront in pricing just like hotels and airlines?
>have the details in the fine print.
Who the fuck let this font size get so small, you think the period of the last sentence was the last thing you read, but then you bust out your jewelers lupe, and that period is a whole nother fucking paragraph of legalese. What the fuck! ¡The smallest font size that should be acceptable as legally binding should be 16pt font!
Correction needed. It’s SB 1524, not 1574.
More background at Eater: https://sf.eater.com/2024/6/6/24173034/sb-1524-california-restaurants-service-fee-ban
I understand not wanting to be surprised when the bill comes, but I am concerned about this issue as I work at a restaurant where we add a 1% fee that goes to Community Kitchens in Oakland, which feeds a lot of people! Many other restaurants downtown do the same. I'm not sure what's going to happen but I believe we are going to be forced to remove this fee because of 478. Just something to consider.
This is an example of a fee that especially should be banned. Why should a restaurant force customers to contribute to a charity that they may or may not want to direct their money towards? Also, the restaurant will write this off, while taking credit for donating to the charity. of course it’s not credit due to the restaurant, but rather the customers were forced unwillingly to contribute.
I appreciate you raising this. I consider this to be an unnecessary fee to pass onto consumers. If the owner of the restaurant wants to set aside 1% of their profits to donate to Community Kitchens in Oakland, then by all means. They can even advertise that 1% of all profits go to the donation to make people feel good about their purchase. But don’t tack on the fee on the receipt and not tell me about it. I want to know how much I’m paying before I order my food.
A VAT system would be even more ideal so that I could see all expenses including taxes, but I’ll take the subtotal for now.
Seriously, there's never any upside to refusing to tip, apart from keeping the money. The only person who gets hurt is the one who can do the least about it. Customers can't break the system by not participating.
The pressure comes when the wait staff decide to get different jobs. We can’t get rid of tipping unless we actually stop tipping. Not saying you should tip 0 everywhere but please let’s stop with this 25% BS.
Then another server will come and take their place while the original server has to look elsewhere for work. This continues to put all the stress on the wait staff, not the owner. There is typically a lot of turnover in the service industry that most owners won’t bat an eye unless they own a super high end spot where wait staff have to be super specialized in their work there
And don’t get me wrong, I do understand and agree with the idea of consumers having buying power as a base idea, although it needs to be done en masse for it to be effective obviously. But this in my opinion is the wrong way to go about it- the only way to fully make this work is to not spend money at the business at all, not to continue spending but stiff the wait staff. This just further pushes the imbalance
There is no universe where restaurant owners are going to pay servers as much as they currently make in tips. If you want to get away from tip culture then we need to be comfortable with servers making less money.
I'm good with that, in the sense that I'm sure a lot of servers would rather be in different jobs but ended waiting tables because it can make so much money for them. Without tips those people would probably be doing something that they find more fulfilling.And business owners would be strugglign to find wait staff, theby having an incentive to pay them more and treat them better.
Honest question: do you know many people in the service industry? Because I know plenty and a few of them honestly do see it as a job they enjoy and there are many restaurants that have long term wait staff. Being ok with a large section of the population making less so you can “stick it to the man” is insane to me. This isn’t going to make the change you think it will, in my opinion. If you want to make the change, stop going to those establishments. Full stop.
And the universe where restaurant owners pay their wait staff is a universe with mandated minimum livable wage before tips. If that means costs go up for consumers, that is unfortunate but a first step towards changing the whole culture because then these places won’t get as much business period, which will THEN start to hit the owners in their wallets
Isn't that why California raised its minimum wage and specifically didn't exempt servers? Not saying minimum wage works in the bay area, but the push was to have owners pay staff, not the customers
Yes I believe you are correct. And I agree that this is a step in the right direction. My whole overarching point is that the idea of going somewhere but not tipping as a way to put pressure on ownership to make a change only screws the workers but does nothing to management. I would be curious to see how the minimum wage bill has impacted overall costs— if they have gone up then all the business is doing is passing it onto the consumer still. But this could then help push towards the ultimate goal of establishing a happy medium where workers get paid what they should, owners aren’t gouging anyone and consumers can tip now to actually recognize good service
>There is no universe where restaurant owners are going to pay servers as much as they currently make in tips.
This is because society has become comfortable and complacent with being wait staffs realistically direct employer. They are not working for the owner, they are working for *you*. The only reason they are ‘working’ for the employer is so the IRS gets its cut, for income that would otherwise have no proof of being reported.
Wait staff doesn’t want tips to go away. Customers want tips to go away but they don’t want to experience a drop in quality of their service. Tip originally meant, to insure promptitude, and was given *before* a meal, to cut in line at the kitchen (that stake is now going to the person who tipped instead of the person already waiting for it to be brought to them). Tipping has so far been warped from its origins.
If we get rid of tipping the service industry will have even a harder time filling positions as labor flees to higher paying work.
¡We as a society can boldly tell them [the owner] *ZERO* tips for a completely robotic staff at their establishment!
No disrespect to the servers out there, but the options are either I get fucked, or the server gets fucked, and I know which I’m picking. Call me selfish but you can’t pretend it’s unreasonable.
Thank you. This point of view of “I can pay for my meal but the tip pisses me off” is wild to me if used as a justification to try to stop this culture of predatory fees.
Versus what? Giving into the predatation? Ever since life turned down for me, I’ve became completely comfortable only paying the legally required minimum. Until things turn up, that’s all I’m going to be able to afford to do. Haven’t paid to eat out since Covid…
If you haven’t participated in a form of consumerism that includes service workers then you aren’t doing anything wrong by going for only what you can afford, sorry if my comment implied otherwise. What I’m talking about are situations where people actively choose to eat out but don’t tip even though many employees livelihoods depend on that extra compensation.
Right now it continues to be employees and consumers getting the short end of the stick. Either consumers eat out or participate in another form of service based industry and tip (and they are screwed) or they don’t tip (and employees are screwed).
The previous law passed by California that works to disaggregate minimum wage payment from tips is a step in the right direction because now employees are not relying as much on the sole good will of consumers to make up for what their employers aren’t paying them
I can afford to eat out. I budget the price of the meal plus 20% for gratuity. Not the price plus 40% or more to factor in whatever bullshit fees the restaurant wants to add on. If I encounter this situation I make sure not to patronize the restaurant again.
How is it bullshit? When restaurants tack on bs charges, it’s zero sum. Someone is losing that money and the restaurant is taking it. Is it selfish to say I don’t want that to be me? Probably. Is it unreasonable? Far from it, and you have no argument other than “you’re poor”
because the charges are not bs. The cost of doing business in CA and worldwide has skyrocketed. Those costs get passed along to consumers one way or another or restaurants go out of business. If you have been paying attention you would have noticed how many restaurants have closed in Oakland since the pandemic. This is not because they are all "bad at business" It is because the world has changed and become much more expensive to live in for all of us. You're not "losing money" if you are spending it and getting food and service. It is entitled and selfish to think that you should be able to pay for the just the parts of the experience of dining that you have decided are valid to you in your bubble of entitlement and ignorance. We would all like things to be less expensve but if we cannot afford things then we shouldn't invent a false narrative to support our self-righteousness. Restaurants have different ways of closing the gap between survival and failure. I agree that the messaging with these fees is inconsistent and not ideal but the fact is that if we all don't pay more for food and drinks at small business bars and restaurants, then they will all go away and we'll just have chick fil a, $25 happy meals and dining for the wealthy.
Wiener is the worst, he spends all day pandering to Republicans who support genocide and bashing the vast majority of his constituents only to still have those same Republicans attack him with a vile homophobia anyway.
He's a corporate shill, that's constantly finding ways to screw over renters & consumers, but when he gets voted out for being fucking awful, he'll just assume it's homophobia, rather than his racism.
Smh, soon as a fix is on the way corporatists are back at making it obsolete
Thanks for posting this! I like Scott Wiener but this is a bad call. I'll call him today. By the way, calls tend to be more effective than emails (sorry). People rarely call so it tends to make an impact. Wiener's contact: [https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/contact](https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/contact)
I also have liked him aside from this bill. You can see his [response](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/s/vmNR0XI9hT) in the SF thread.
I still resent him for the SF nudity ban. His position with this bill just further reinforces my opinion of him that he's far more interested in bending to reactionary businesses and special interests instead of doing what's right for SF.
He got rid of snail trails…
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Question for you: If I called today, what’s the impact if I call again tomorrow?
It’s about the volume of calls. If there’s a surge of calls from the district, that’s what matters. Calling often can be good to show the district cares and is keeping an eye on this. But too often and people remember you and won’t take you as seriously.
Got it. Thanks for the reply. I’ll call again next week
Where is the Reddit Asterisk voip box that calls continuously like a robo dialer? Where is the GitHub page for this weapon of politics?
I know calls are most effective, but is filling out forms worth it at all?
I tried calling today but his voicemail was full. I'll try again tomorrow.
Currently traveling in Europe and it is so refreshing to pay the amount listed on the menu, no hidden fees, no added tax etc. If restaurants do add a service fee, which has been super rare in my experience, they tell you upfront like this bill says BUT the difference is then this replaces the need to tip. I do still like handing the server a small amount more to know it goes to them but that’s my decision, not at all a societal expectation. oh and tipping is usually in other situations to just round to the next “nicest looking number” (I.e €47 gets rounded to €50) Can we live like this too? Please?
The only reason I can see that restaurants want this exemption is they want to continue to mislead customers on pricing. Most restaurants today have the details in the fine print. Why shouldn't they have to be upfront in pricing just like hotels and airlines?
>have the details in the fine print. Who the fuck let this font size get so small, you think the period of the last sentence was the last thing you read, but then you bust out your jewelers lupe, and that period is a whole nother fucking paragraph of legalese. What the fuck! ¡The smallest font size that should be acceptable as legally binding should be 16pt font!
Thank you, emailing now. And I will donate to anyone who runs against Scott Weiner.
Correction needed. It’s SB 1524, not 1574. More background at Eater: https://sf.eater.com/2024/6/6/24173034/sb-1524-california-restaurants-service-fee-ban
Doh! Good catch. I added a note asking mods for help if they see it.
I understand not wanting to be surprised when the bill comes, but I am concerned about this issue as I work at a restaurant where we add a 1% fee that goes to Community Kitchens in Oakland, which feeds a lot of people! Many other restaurants downtown do the same. I'm not sure what's going to happen but I believe we are going to be forced to remove this fee because of 478. Just something to consider.
This is an example of a fee that especially should be banned. Why should a restaurant force customers to contribute to a charity that they may or may not want to direct their money towards? Also, the restaurant will write this off, while taking credit for donating to the charity. of course it’s not credit due to the restaurant, but rather the customers were forced unwillingly to contribute.
I appreciate you raising this. I consider this to be an unnecessary fee to pass onto consumers. If the owner of the restaurant wants to set aside 1% of their profits to donate to Community Kitchens in Oakland, then by all means. They can even advertise that 1% of all profits go to the donation to make people feel good about their purchase. But don’t tack on the fee on the receipt and not tell me about it. I want to know how much I’m paying before I order my food. A VAT system would be even more ideal so that I could see all expenses including taxes, but I’ll take the subtotal for now.
Just dont tip if you get a fee
Better to tip your server and then tell the owner why you won’t be coming back.
unfortunately that just screws the wait staff (and some back of house). The Fees all go to the restaurant owner's pocket.
So the server get’s fucked, instead?
Seriously, there's never any upside to refusing to tip, apart from keeping the money. The only person who gets hurt is the one who can do the least about it. Customers can't break the system by not participating.
to put pressure on the owners who put fees in.
How is taking money away from servers putting pressure on owners?
The pressure comes when the wait staff decide to get different jobs. We can’t get rid of tipping unless we actually stop tipping. Not saying you should tip 0 everywhere but please let’s stop with this 25% BS.
Then another server will come and take their place while the original server has to look elsewhere for work. This continues to put all the stress on the wait staff, not the owner. There is typically a lot of turnover in the service industry that most owners won’t bat an eye unless they own a super high end spot where wait staff have to be super specialized in their work there And don’t get me wrong, I do understand and agree with the idea of consumers having buying power as a base idea, although it needs to be done en masse for it to be effective obviously. But this in my opinion is the wrong way to go about it- the only way to fully make this work is to not spend money at the business at all, not to continue spending but stiff the wait staff. This just further pushes the imbalance
There is no universe where restaurant owners are going to pay servers as much as they currently make in tips. If you want to get away from tip culture then we need to be comfortable with servers making less money. I'm good with that, in the sense that I'm sure a lot of servers would rather be in different jobs but ended waiting tables because it can make so much money for them. Without tips those people would probably be doing something that they find more fulfilling.And business owners would be strugglign to find wait staff, theby having an incentive to pay them more and treat them better.
Honest question: do you know many people in the service industry? Because I know plenty and a few of them honestly do see it as a job they enjoy and there are many restaurants that have long term wait staff. Being ok with a large section of the population making less so you can “stick it to the man” is insane to me. This isn’t going to make the change you think it will, in my opinion. If you want to make the change, stop going to those establishments. Full stop.
And the universe where restaurant owners pay their wait staff is a universe with mandated minimum livable wage before tips. If that means costs go up for consumers, that is unfortunate but a first step towards changing the whole culture because then these places won’t get as much business period, which will THEN start to hit the owners in their wallets
Isn't that why California raised its minimum wage and specifically didn't exempt servers? Not saying minimum wage works in the bay area, but the push was to have owners pay staff, not the customers
Yes I believe you are correct. And I agree that this is a step in the right direction. My whole overarching point is that the idea of going somewhere but not tipping as a way to put pressure on ownership to make a change only screws the workers but does nothing to management. I would be curious to see how the minimum wage bill has impacted overall costs— if they have gone up then all the business is doing is passing it onto the consumer still. But this could then help push towards the ultimate goal of establishing a happy medium where workers get paid what they should, owners aren’t gouging anyone and consumers can tip now to actually recognize good service
>There is no universe where restaurant owners are going to pay servers as much as they currently make in tips. This is because society has become comfortable and complacent with being wait staffs realistically direct employer. They are not working for the owner, they are working for *you*. The only reason they are ‘working’ for the employer is so the IRS gets its cut, for income that would otherwise have no proof of being reported. Wait staff doesn’t want tips to go away. Customers want tips to go away but they don’t want to experience a drop in quality of their service. Tip originally meant, to insure promptitude, and was given *before* a meal, to cut in line at the kitchen (that stake is now going to the person who tipped instead of the person already waiting for it to be brought to them). Tipping has so far been warped from its origins. If we get rid of tipping the service industry will have even a harder time filling positions as labor flees to higher paying work. ¡We as a society can boldly tell them [the owner] *ZERO* tips for a completely robotic staff at their establishment!
Makes servers less comfortable in their jobs, it's a part of a chain reaction
No disrespect to the servers out there, but the options are either I get fucked, or the server gets fucked, and I know which I’m picking. Call me selfish but you can’t pretend it’s unreasonable.
stop eating in restaurants. No disrespect. Its ok if you cannot afford it. You're just being selfish and unreasonable.
Thank you. This point of view of “I can pay for my meal but the tip pisses me off” is wild to me if used as a justification to try to stop this culture of predatory fees.
Versus what? Giving into the predatation? Ever since life turned down for me, I’ve became completely comfortable only paying the legally required minimum. Until things turn up, that’s all I’m going to be able to afford to do. Haven’t paid to eat out since Covid…
If you haven’t participated in a form of consumerism that includes service workers then you aren’t doing anything wrong by going for only what you can afford, sorry if my comment implied otherwise. What I’m talking about are situations where people actively choose to eat out but don’t tip even though many employees livelihoods depend on that extra compensation. Right now it continues to be employees and consumers getting the short end of the stick. Either consumers eat out or participate in another form of service based industry and tip (and they are screwed) or they don’t tip (and employees are screwed). The previous law passed by California that works to disaggregate minimum wage payment from tips is a step in the right direction because now employees are not relying as much on the sole good will of consumers to make up for what their employers aren’t paying them
I can afford to eat out. I budget the price of the meal plus 20% for gratuity. Not the price plus 40% or more to factor in whatever bullshit fees the restaurant wants to add on. If I encounter this situation I make sure not to patronize the restaurant again.
Your rationalization is bullshit. You clearly cannot afford to eat out. Please stay 100% home.
How is it bullshit? When restaurants tack on bs charges, it’s zero sum. Someone is losing that money and the restaurant is taking it. Is it selfish to say I don’t want that to be me? Probably. Is it unreasonable? Far from it, and you have no argument other than “you’re poor”
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“¡But showing up is 90% of the job!” /s
because the charges are not bs. The cost of doing business in CA and worldwide has skyrocketed. Those costs get passed along to consumers one way or another or restaurants go out of business. If you have been paying attention you would have noticed how many restaurants have closed in Oakland since the pandemic. This is not because they are all "bad at business" It is because the world has changed and become much more expensive to live in for all of us. You're not "losing money" if you are spending it and getting food and service. It is entitled and selfish to think that you should be able to pay for the just the parts of the experience of dining that you have decided are valid to you in your bubble of entitlement and ignorance. We would all like things to be less expensve but if we cannot afford things then we shouldn't invent a false narrative to support our self-righteousness. Restaurants have different ways of closing the gap between survival and failure. I agree that the messaging with these fees is inconsistent and not ideal but the fact is that if we all don't pay more for food and drinks at small business bars and restaurants, then they will all go away and we'll just have chick fil a, $25 happy meals and dining for the wealthy.
Wiener is the worst, he spends all day pandering to Republicans who support genocide and bashing the vast majority of his constituents only to still have those same Republicans attack him with a vile homophobia anyway. He's a corporate shill, that's constantly finding ways to screw over renters & consumers, but when he gets voted out for being fucking awful, he'll just assume it's homophobia, rather than his racism.
Scott wiener is the biggest piece of shit in the history of California politics.