This likely won't be an issue moving forward. City Council yesterday voted — 43-3 in favor of the bill — to require stores and restaurants in the five boroughs to accept cash for payment.
As Council members noted, businesses that accept only credit and debit cards are discriminating against residents who lack bank accounts and credit cards.
Enforcement details via the Associated Press:
Businesses that refuse cash will be fined $1,000 for the first violation and $1,500 after that. The measure, which is expected to go into effect by the end of the year, also prohibits stores from charging higher prices for paying in cash.
An excerpt from Gothamist:
"We in the Council have real concerns that an increasingly cashless marketplace could have a real-world discriminatory effect on the most vulnerable New Yorkers," said the bill's sponsor, Councilmember Ritchie Torres, in a phone interview. "There are some people, especially senior citizens...who prefer cash as a habitual method of payment. There are some who prefer cash because it's more predictable. Or they're concerned about privacy."
As Eater pointed out, this means that restaurant chains like Dos Toros and By Chloe and several establishments in the Union Square Hospitality Group (Daily Provisions at Union Square, for example) will have to start accepting cash.
The bill will go into effect nine months after Mayor de Blasio signs it into law. A spokesperson for the mayor told Gothamist that he supports the bill.
37 comments:
Now they need to address the issue of those places that are cash only, yet they own and manage an atm in store that has a $5 service fee.
Hello Big Brother,
Credit cards charge processing fees, compromise privacy
"it’s not hard to imagine more-sinister scenarios in the not-too-distant future. “Let’s say you buy a lot of unhealthy products,” says Marilyn Prosch, associate professor at the Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, and cofounder of a data privacy lab. “Can that information be used when you later apply for health insurance?”
"in time, credit card companies will sell the information they have about their customers to other companies to make up for fees they can no longer charge."
https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/retailer-data-tracking-privacy-credit-debit-cards-1282.php
Great - on top of every other personal intrusion - now
credit card info sold possibly in the future.
MTA is doing the same by wanting card/phone payments -
knowing who goes through at exactly what time and of course then
your bank account info.
Does the MTA really need all this ? and why ?
Simply, too much personal info going out.
Cashless is clearly the future, but good on them for recognizing how it disadvantages some.
Let's see if this law is allowed to go through or some deep state lapdog judge shoots it down. remember, all those surveillance pods going up and down the avenues DiBlasio installed have microphones and sensors and cameras. Anyone carrying a cellphone is partnered with the data thieves. You can't have it both ways.
@8:29
Surveillance capitalism has been a thing for a long time now. All your info on social media is stored forever
and mined and sold to the highest bidder. Factor in the vacuum suck up by the NSA and one's privacy's is just about nil............interestingly this was forecast (along w an HIV like sex virus, global warming and militarized police force) an old EV inhabitant, William Burroughs, the writer/ artist/ filmmaker.
It used to be that credit card payments would slow the line down, now it is the cash payments that slow the line down. Please pay by credit card people!
Wait until there's another blackout and see how difficult it is to do business without cash.
Back to the earlier comment about cash only businesses.
Couldn't one argue they discriminate against younger generations that do not use cash?
@ 9:38 you would require that someone pays banking fees just so you can get your coffee faster?! cash is legal tender for all debts public and private and it is discriminatory and elitist not to accept it
@9:38 - credit cards payments for most transactions take longer than cash payments in my observation
The gov't can surveil me all they want. Because they are not going to find anything incriminating or bust me. They can watch me through my laptop cam picking my nose or jacking off or whatever for all I care. Monitoring some random weirdo albeit law-abiding citizen represents a massive waste of gov't resources obviously but hey, that never stopped anybody.
Am I naive for being the only person in the world who's not worried about surveillance? I am way too busy with immediate, pressing, real-world of work and family life matters to wring my hands over this sort of shit.
Sorry for those that can't wait 3 seconds longer for the cashier to hand back change to a cash customer. If your late for something perhaps set your alarm 30 mins earlier each day. We have traded convenience for our privacy when ever we google something, make and electronic purchase.
I pay cash in clothing stores so if I need to return something they have no record of who I am. Stores keep records of repeat returners and will not accept returns from you once you have crossed their policies' threshold.
The more sinister capitalist side of this digital profile is how it will be used to charge certain people higher prices than others for the same product as with health insurance.
also people who eat unhealthily SHOULD PAY MORE for health insurance! simple market economics!
This is fantastic! The EVGrumps get exactly what they've been asking for -- stores must now accept cash. So what happens in the comments section of the post? They start whining about government surveillance (which this law helps prevent).
You can't make this stuff up! Keep on EVGrump'in!
11:14 AM "also people who eat unhealthily SHOULD PAY MORE for health insurance! simple market economics!"
And people who are genetic predisposed to cancer and other diseases should pay the highest rate in your world also?
Eating organic foods is more expensive than factory farm food which is doused in pesticides many of which are legal in this country thanks to chemical company's lobbying efforts. Jon are you 100% sure the food you eat is that healthy and will not contribute to a future illness? So tired of Libertarian selfishness, we are all in this together so make sure everyone is treated fairly.
I agree with the concern that cashless businesses ultimately discriminate against the un/under-banked... definitely a problem moving forward. But, in reality, all these are bougie places anyway. Congratulations, the underbanked can now buy a $15 salad with cash, lol.
Thank you MrNiceGuy! Spot on.
@9:04am: Your comment 'you can't have it both ways' makes no sense in this context! You are mixing gov't surveillance on the streets with credit card companies having your purchasing data - definitely NOT the same thing!
Just wondering why we have to wait nine months for this to go into effect. It certainly doesn't take that long for a business to arrange to accept cash or to arrange to accept credit/debit cards.
And regarding the businesses that claim they do better cashless b/c their employees don't steal from them, I suggest the owners need to be more particular when they're hiring - and consider how they treat their employees. Not everyone is a potential thief, but maybe the employers have that mindset because of how they themselves are.
January 24, 2020 at 10:46 AM
I assume you lock your door, why would you allow strangers into your data?
@Mr Nice Guy-
Nothing is going to prevent GOVT surveillance. It's here to stay. It's the same with CC companies and Social Media. They're all linked together with the same goal - Control. My point is that privacy as we once knew it is gone and that environment in which we live is more controlled than it ever was. News media, social media, corporations, political figures all want to control what you see, read, think and purchase..........You can draw your own conclusions whether it's good, bad, not an an issue.
If I were a business owner, I'd want credit only: you don't have to worry about counting the money, employees stealing, and getting robbed. I do, though, understand that not everyone wants to use a traceable form of payment and that some may not have credit cards for various reasons. I think the best is to ensure all businesses accept both cash and credit.
Hi 10:45a.m. I've been a cashier and have witnessed the same thing!
Cash payments are much faster than credit card payments.
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Good. I'm not thrilled with the square card reader being swivelled around and being guilted into adding a tip on my card every time I frequent certain businesses. I feel like when I hit the "no tip" option the service slows down.
"Couldn't one argue they discriminate against younger generations that do not use cash?"
OMG which coins are quarters and dimes and like how much are they worth, money is stupid and gross.
I'm definitely in favor of this bill. And I'm not even going to provide a list of reasons because why should I have to? Cash is legal tender.
It hate that big banks are skimming 2.7% off of pretty-much every transaction these days. Imagine how much money that is. What have they done to deserve this? Frankly, I think big banks are the enemy, and I try to pay as much as possible in cash to give them that much less money.
The other issue with cashless businesses is that the tips are often stolen or skimmed off by the business owner, or are distributed at their own discretion as a means to reward or punish employees. Since the tips are all tracked they become taxable income, so the employees lose again.
"Privacy is not private, because the effectiveness of these and other private or public surveillance and control systems depends upon the pieces of ourselves that we give up — or that are secretly stolen from us."
"Surveillance capitalists exploit the widening inequity of knowledge for the sake of profits. They manipulate the economy, our society and even our lives with impunity, endangering not just individual privacy but democracy itself. Distracted by our delusions, we failed to notice this bloodless coup from above."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/surveillance-capitalism.html
Two things: if you get to the register at Dos Toros and discover they don't take cash and you don't have a card - Dos Toros cashiers will often just give you your burrito for free. I've seen it twice.
Second - new startup business models are possible in a cashless world that we'll now never see. For instance, Luckin coffee chain in China accepts only mobile phone orders - so they don't hire cashiers at all and their coffee is half of Starbucks' prices.
Businesses that suddenly go cashless are probably in trouble. Most likely, they're looking to inflate their credit card receipts in order to secure a loan. Look at the Spreadhouse on Suffolk St - one day they were like "we're cashless now," and I thought, "oh here we go," and then within a month they were shuttered.
I believe it's a good idea have the option to pay cash or credit card, the choice is ours.
Below, another excerpt from above link NY Times Op ed "You Are Now Remotely Controlled"
"people use these services because they have no comparable alternatives and because they are ignorant of surveillance capitalism’s shadow operations and their consequences. Pew Research Center recently reported that 81 percent of Americans believe the potential risks of companies’ data collection outweigh the benefits, suggesting that corporate success depends upon coercion and obfuscation rather than meeting peoples’ real needs."
Good Lord. Are we still going on about this?
@4:08pm: Yes, it seems we ARE still going on about this, including you joining in!
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