NYC Politician Wants to Ban Cashless Restaurants

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The ubiquity of smartphones and traditional plastic has paved the way to increasing numbers of cashless restaurants in the NYC area, but one politician wants them banned because he thinks the concept is “classist and racist.” Ritchie J. Torres suggests they’re inadvertently “excluding lower-income communities,” which comprise folks “who might not be able to afford smartphones loaded with digital currency such as Apple Pay or qualify for credit cards.”

“I started coming across coffee shops and cafés that were exclusively cashless and I thought: But what if I was a low-income New Yorker who has no access to a card?” he says in a Q&A with Grub Street. “I thought about it more and realized that even if a policy seems neutral in theory, it can be racially exclusionary in practice. Therein lies the problem with card-only policies. I see it as a way to gentrify the marketplace.”
 
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Disagree with the reasoning behind this, but I do support it.
Cash should always be an accepted method of payment.

EDIT: Withdrawing my support for this. TrailRunner is 100% correct when he said that gov't should stay out of it entirely.
 
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Disagree with the reasoning behind this, but I do support it.
Cash should always be an accepted method of payment.

THIS. Go ahead and offer cashless, but cashless only? What part of "all debts public and private" do they not understand?

This is not a "classist" issue. It's a businesses being fucking stupid issue. Someone with a giant wad of cash should go nuts at one of these places then pay with cash and when they refuse, just let it escalate. Fucking call the cops, idiot business owner. See how that works.
 
No doubt this will require at least 3 bureaucratic drones making $150K a year of taxpayer money to screw around all day visiting restaurants...
 
Poor reasoning. Anyone with access to cash can easily go purchase a prepaid Visa card. Utterly stupid of a business to not allow cash though and frankly it borders on illegal. As already mentioned all US paper currency features a phrase similar to “This certificate is legal tender for all debts private and public.” (Can’t recall exact wording). Essentially saying a public business refusing cash payment is in fact breaking the law.

Businesses can refuse service for any reason but if service is already rendered well....yep. Better be willing to take whatever legal payment is offered.
 
Poor reasoning. Anyone with access to cash can easily go purchase a prepaid Visa card. Utterly stupid of a business to not allow cash though and frankly it borders on illegal. As already mentioned all US paper currency features a phrase similar to “This certificate is legal tender for all debts private and public.” (Can’t recall exact wording). Essentially saying a public business refusing cash payment is in fact breaking the law.

Businesses can refuse service for any reason but if service is already rendered well....yep. Better be willing to take whatever legal payment is offered.
you know I did this once and it really wasn't that easy, they wanted you to log in online, fill out some stuff I was like WTF I just want to swipe it, I already paid for it and its prepaid.
 
I don't understand why a business would want to be cashless. Electronic payment processing is usually around 2%.

First of all despite what people tell you about businesses just caring about money and not doing things for stupid reasons its not true. Businesses do things on the emotion of CEO or manager all the time. I would venter to guess that some businesses are figuring out that maybe if you only accept electronic methods of payment then its a lot harder for your employees to steal from you and you don't need to pay for and manage services to move the money to the bank and back, get change, have cash registers. And in places where their is a lot of loss that might all be worth it in their opinion. Could also just be some guy trying to be all progressive and hip.
 
I don't understand why a business would want to be cashless. Electronic payment processing is usually around 2%.

The amount of extra time needed to count the customers cash, make change, count all the cash in the register at the end of the day, and then periodically ship the net cash to the bank ends up being a similar if not higher overhead.
 
Ha. This fucking country. “This currency is legal tender for ALL DEBTS but yeah that business doesn’t have to accept it.”

Monopoly money it is!
So at one time paper currency was literally a gold certificate - bring it to a federal reserve branch and you could exchange it for its actual value in gold. Then we were taken off of the gold standard, and that paper actually became Monopoly Money. The phrase ‘legal tender for all debts public and private’ isn’t meant to imply that it’s legally required to use paper currency for exchange. What it’s supposed to mean is that even though the currency is no longer backed by a physical store of value, that it should be considered as having value.
And government should stay the hell out of how two parties transact business, as long as that business is legal. Doesn’t matter if it’s through cash, or card, or bitcoin, or seashells as long both parties freely consent and the tax man is getting his share then big brother leave alone.
 
And government should stay the hell out of how two parties transact business, as long as that business is legal. Doesn’t matter if it’s through cash, or card, or bitcoin, or seashells as long both parties freely consent and the tax man is getting his share then big brother leave alone.
You're right. As much as I believe cash should always be accepted, you're correct. What I feel and believe should not trump choice and freedom.
I'll amend my initial post.
 
If you can't afford to get a credit card maybe you shouldn't be eating at restaurants and instead cooking at home where it's cheaper. I've lived on 200$ a week, you think I was visiting some high end eatery on that budget? Now of course that means grocery stores need to accept cash but they mostly do. I don't see how this affects poor people, it may actually help them...
 
And why would a business want to go cashless? Because it reduces theft (both internal skimming, possible robbery when taking funds to the bank, outright robbery) and reduces costs. Although there are those credit card processing fees.

Also, this is New York BLEEPy. Don't they have much bigger problems to worry about than whether or not a business accepts ca$h or not? Let the business worry about the possible costs of excluding a certain customer base. I would consider wage theft more important than whether or not a business accepts cash.
 
Even if you don't qualify for a credit card you will at least have a debit card that could be accepted. If you don't have enough cash to open a bank account then you wouldn't be going out to eat anyways.
 
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Or people like me that only do cash transactions if it is with anyone i can see / touch.

Cash are a major thing for any society, if they force that out the same societies will be catering for the elite.
And it is easy for them to do that cuz we are all ignorant lazy bastards thats so easy to trick.
 
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Like a few other people have already said, it's far more racist to make assumptions about people based on their race. In this case assuming that people who have a certain skin color cannot afford to have a credit / debit card or even a fancy smart phone. I think the those government types in New York City just make laws to make laws. They want to control others and exert their power over them in any way they possibly can. It doesn't just stop at telling them they can't treat themselves to an extra large soft drink. Soon NYC will pass laws on what type of undergarments are allowed in their fair city.
 
It is classist. You be surprised how many people don't even have bank accounts for even a debit card. Some people just want to use cash. It was a big deal when my company switched to direct deposit for everyone. The amount of people crying that they didn't have a bank account. They just went to the liquor store down the street to cash their checks.
 
I don't understand why a business would want to be cashless. Electronic payment processing is usually around 2%.

It cuts down on theft from employees, and makes the business non-viable target for robbery. It also makes it easier to do your banking and every transaction is tied to a receipt. When dealing with cash you have to match cash to receipts, count drawers etc. It just makes management that much easier.
 
It is classist. You be surprised how many people don't even have bank accounts for even a debit card. Some people just want to use cash. It was a big deal when my company switched to direct deposit for everyone. The amount of people crying that they didn't have a bank account. They just went to the liquor store down the street to cash their checks.

We cannot go cashless until drug dealers start accepting credit cards.
 
well we all know why banks want everybody to go cashless, they'll be raking in extra transaction fees which they'll keep jacking up.
 
Strange, but I always thought it was illegal to refuse legal tender?

From: https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."

This statute means that all United States money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law which says otherwise.
 
Have any of you paid cash for anything in a store recently? A lot of these people can't count back change if the register doesn't tell them how many nickles to give you.

Is he going to make the food carts take cards because they are cash only. Make it easier for the elites to slum it up from time to time?
 
Strange, but I always thought it was illegal to refuse legal tender?

nope. This isn't really anything new. There is no debt in place that you are paying off so they can refuse whatever they want just like a vending machine doesn't take $10+ bills or gas stations might post that they won't accept anything larger than $20s. Even the new Amazon stores do this where you walk in, grab what you want and leave and it charges your Amazon account. You couldn't shop there with cash but instead have to use some form of plastic.
 
There is a cost and threat to having and taking cash to businesses. Moving it, picking it up, maintaining change, theft. For a tiny coffee shop that overcharges for it anyway to avoid cash. I don't find this surprising at all. What I find more surprising is anyplace that doesn't take credit at all. They tend to turn into dumps. There tends to be a bunch of people that get angry about not taking cash. I experience the opposite problem. Having to go find a ATM somewhere because I never carry cash.
 
Have any of you paid cash for anything in a store recently? A lot of these people can't count back change if the register doesn't tell them how many nickles to give you.

Is he going to make the food carts take cards because they are cash only. Make it easier for the elites to slum it up from time to time?

Yeah when I dont want the wife to know about gift for the mistress ;)
 
If you can't afford to get a credit card maybe you shouldn't be eating at restaurants and instead cooking at home where it's cheaper. I've lived on 200$ a week, you think I was visiting some high end eatery on that budget? Now of course that means grocery stores need to accept cash but they mostly do. I don't see how this affects poor people, it may actually help them...
Not having a credit card doesn't mean you are destitute. Some people refuse to take on credit.
Even if you don't qualify for a credit card you will at least have a debit card that could be accepted. If you don't have enough cash to open a bank account then you wouldn't be going out to eat anyways.
There are banks that offer ATM cards that cannot be used for debit transactions.
Have any of you paid cash for anything in a store recently? A lot of these people can't count back change if the register doesn't tell them how many nickles to give you.

Is he going to make the food carts take cards because they are cash only. Make it easier for the elites to slum it up from time to time?
I use cash all the time and have yet to run into anyone who can't count change. I have run into cashiers who won't give me pennies, though.
 
I use cash all the time and have yet to run into anyone who can't count change. I have run into cashiers who won't give me pennies, though.

I see it all the time. It isn't restricted to any one part of the country either. Guess I have bad luck with cashiers.
 
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