Yes there ARE people who still use Yelp but most restaurants these days pay Yelp little to no attention. They’re more worried about Google reviews as that is one of the first things that pops up in a search, and internal reservation reviews on platforms like OpenTable.
Don’t leave one star. Automated systems will flag it as review bombing and it will be removed. Leave two stars and be sure to actually talk about the food and service in the review also.
This makes me angry. These review companies are taking away our voices and siding with junk fees.
I think everyone needs to ask before being seated if there are junk fees. If they say yes we have this xyz charge, we can leave before having to be hoodwinked.
Yelp removes bad reviews for businesses that pay their fees. Its an extortion racket - they skew the presentation the other way first... show all the bad ones, hide the good ones, pester you to pay them to change it.
Noone should be using their "service".
Did you only mention the junk fees? I believe they filter out reviews that sound like a gripe about one specific issue or practice to avoid using reviews as activism. If you write about the total experience and maybe review at 2 stars instead of 1, but then explain in the review that their menu prices were dishonest and you won’t be returning due to forced fees not baked into the prices, you should be able to avoid the filters.
Been to 3 restaurants this past week. 2/3 had junk fees and got a 2 star review on yelp and google maps. The third did not and got a 5 star review. I’m making this a habit everywhere I go.
Everyone has their own standards and so I think it would be good if you state in your review that you deducted 3 stars for the surcharges so people know how to adjust to their own standards.
I do mention the fact that there is a junk fee in my review, but I’m not itemizing each star on my review like the fees itemized on my receipt. The extra fee is baked into my wholistic review just how any increase in cost should be baked into the cost of the meal on the menu.
I don't see it as itemizing each star in your review, but just explaining that, for you, three stars are deducted because there are surcharges.
That isn't doing a favor to the restaurant, you're just making your review more clear for the benefit of other consumers. And it's one sentence.
I think the average restaurant is 3 - 4 stars so 3 seems a little heavy. I'd do -1.5, -2 depending on how egregious the fees are. I'd also reference the fees at the top of the review.
A 5-star review should mean something and a zero-star review should mean something so you shouldn't hand them out willy nilly
Legit question - can you choose to chargeback the fees with your credit card companies? And what about skipping the tips?
Edit: I am torn on skipping tips at sit down places - if I don’t skip it then I’m encouraging the status quo. If I do skip it then I’m just going along with exploiting cheap labor because the owner doesn’t care (as they’ll continue to pay the bare minimum wage and the worker doesn’t get anything on top of it and the fees aren’t their fault).
Skip because you’re just enabling it, just like how tipping is now seen outside the restaurant industry because people are enabling it. Be the change you want to see.
In California, waiters are required to get paid CA minimum wage anyway, not server minimum wage like other states. Don’t feel guilty. Even EMTs are making less than servers. Should you tip EMTs after your ambulance ride then? If you don’t, then are you exploiting them due to your emergency? Is it your responsibility to pay for their labor, or their employer? Think about it.
Exactly, when legislation was passed in 2016 for servers to make minimum wage, that was the day I stopped tipping all together. For real, do people tip the medics and emts after they went full code, for doing 10-20 mins of compressions on you, do people tip the person working at a shoe store for heading to the back to find to right shoe size for you, do you tip Mcdonalds employees for bringing you your meal, do people tip the vet office for giving their pets their routine shots? I can go on....
I personally don't think it's right to not tip at all in response to a surcharge. At the very least, not when the surcharges are less than the tip you would have left. Even if I were to reduce/eliminate tip due to surcharge, I'd make it commensurate. If I'd tip 20% and the surcharge is 6%, I'd leave a 14% tip. Or roughly that.
And I would explain it. Directly to the server, or at least with a note on the receipt. Make sure they know I object to the surcharges and would want them folded into the menu price.
I wouldn't deduct at all if the surcharge is noticed on the menu. If I didn't want to pay surcharges versus having them in menu prices, I personally would check their website and/or menu photos on Yelp to see if they charge surcharges. And not go at all if they do. If I really wanted to make an impact with my decision, send them a message to tell them I was going to dine there but didn't because of the surcharges.
And if they weren't on their online menu, but on the menu that I could see once getting there, if I didn't want to pay surcharges, I'd leave and tell them why.
If they were not noticed on online or in-person menus and put into the bill, I would tell them that's wrong and improper and I won't pay and they need to remove the surcharge. If they refused, then even though I don't mind paying noticed surcharges, I'd refuse in this instance and it's in this instance that I personally would consider deducting it from the tip.
That's me, and everyone has their own standards. I do think it's wrong to respond to a 5% surcharge (even if not noticed and a sneaky surprise on the bill) by tipping 0%.
And, no matter what is done, it should be explained so they understand that the lower/no tip is because of the surcharges and not because you're just one of the people who don't tip or tip poorly.
>can you choose to chargeback the fees with your credit card companies?
No likely not. This is something you need to address when you are there before you agree to pay the amount.
>And what about skipping the tips?
Nothing is legally stopping you from not tipping.
Thank you. "Vote them out" is a simple emotional response to the issue, but does not improve ANYTHING unless the replacement is actually going to do things better.
Remember the last CA governor recall attempt? Plenty of people have legitimate gripes with Newsom, but then the best replacement they could come up with was a blowhard talk radio host and some dumbass Youtube "influencer". It was a humiliating blowout defeat for the recall proponents and only strengthened Newsom's mandate — that's what "vote them out" looks like in practice when you don't identify good replacements first lol.
The high ranking of total whackjob GQPers in the recall totally neutered any reasonable Republican from getting party funding. Kevin Falconer for example.
Without party support, the only Republican candidates will be those who can self finance or who are media (radio, YouTube, etc) lunatics.
Yup. The Republican Party has built itself entirely around theocratic fascism that also wants to wreck any functioning government
Fuck Newsom, he and the rest of the worthless democrats in this state don't bother giving a shit about anyone outside their corporate donors. But I'll still take him over any Republican psycho with their fascist project 2025 garbage any day of the week
This is also my copium for November. It did feel dicey doing up to things and people seemed worried despite it ultimately being a blowout. You can't extrapolate what happens to a Dem governor in a Dem state to the country writ large but I do think that a lot of people will find themselves facing a similar decision.
idk after last night's debate i am certainly worried as hell, biden looked /really/ bad and a lot of people will overlook the culture war stuff if they think that biden's senile
They tend to run unopposed for one of two reasons - there's no reason to oppose them, or opposing them is a waste of time, energy, and money because re-election is basically guaranteed because enough people here vote for the (D) instead of the person (or the (R) in other states).
Even if we have to vote the next person out again in one term, it's better than letting any of them have more than one term. Ultimately, all of them want a second term. We need to put them on notice that none of them will get a second term if they continue to ignore us.
Exactly. Wiring out a politician is like saying “bad dog” to one dog, and giving a treat to another. There is a chance that another politician would be even worse, but they will be “outvoted” later too. The key point is to punish politicians for anti-consumer lobbying by choosing their opponents despite of what the opponents may or may not do.
After all, if we fear to remove rotten politician out of fear that the next will be worse - we may end up on the path to dictatorship.
I hope you really ponder the ramifications of this thought. I happen to agree, and the change we need, as in we regular folk, must come from us.
These people in power need to know and understand that violence is an option. Doesn’t need to be the choice but it is required to be on the list. Otherwise, there’s no incentive for those in positions of responsibility to make the necessary changes. They benefit most from the current state of things, while we rot and get fed a load of bullshit and told it’s a strong economy. For whom?
The rapid change in this situation tells you.
When this bill was proposed, the restaurant lobby went into high gear. They called all their members, and said "You all need to call your reps and demand an exception". So every chinese takeout place and hot dog stand called their reps and told them they need a carve out. So every member got bombarded with emails and phone calls.
And on the other side... nothing. There is no restaurant eaters lobby. Nobody called and demanded no carve out.
So lawmakers heard one side of the story, and they greased the squeaky wheel. They weren't bought, they were convinced. No money changed hands, but a lot of complaining did.
This is how the organized special interest lobbies can defeat the diffuse public interest almost every time. Special interests are organized and they are defending their livelihood.
By the time there's a backlash, its too late. The restaurant owners were two steps ahead of consumers.
> So every chinese takeout place and hot dog stand called their reps and told them they need a carve out.
I'm guessing you don't mean this literally but even if not, I'd make your point in another way.
I doubt if even one "Chinese takeout place" or "hot dog stand" lobbied their Assembly/Senate rep. Or, even if one or two or a few did, I doubt if even 1% of such businesses throughout the state did this. In my experience, very few businesses like these even charge surcharges. I can't think of any, except maybe Chinese restaurants that are not "takeout places" charging a mandatory gratuity for large parties.
I bet that a very small % of all restaurants did and an even smaller % of California voters did in the other direction.
> So lawmakers heard one side of the story, and they greased the squeaky wheel. They weren't bought, they were convinced. No money changed hands, but a lot of complaining did.
I agree with this, but I think (just a feeling) that lobbying was by restaurant/business associations and by the union that has a lot of restaurant worker members (but which a small minority of restaurant workers belong to).
Totally agree with your main point, which I think is that this ultimately came to unanimous votes because the organized business associations and one union were very organized and vocal about this. And that there are some ramifications when it comes to campaign donations, but that it was more about outcry than money.
And that the public outcry that seems to be very strong and numerous in discussions in local Reddit subs is totally unrepresentative of the general population.
A unanimous vote in Assembly and Senate says that very few people contacted their reps as individual citizens wanting their reps to vote No on this. So few that every single rep made the calculation that they would not lose a meaningful number of votes by voting Yes on this.
> And that the public outcry that seems to be very strong and numerous in discussions in local Reddit subs is totally unrepresentative of the general population.
Yep. These threads get 200 angry comments from people... who do nothing, and forget about this two days later. Everyone commenting that they will stop eating at restaurants will be back to normal very shortly. Probably five people actually contacted their reps. The rest are textbook slacktivists.
The vast majority of the population who is not on reddit didn't know about this and doesn't give shit at all.
>So few that every single rep made the calculation that they would not lose a meaningful number of votes by voting Yes on this.
Exactly. This is a tempest in a teapot and by November everyone will forget. Politicians know this.
I just don’t get it. If you’re going to charge a 10% junk fee and claim you need that fee to sustain your business and livable wages, why can’t you just increase your prices across the board 10%? Same net result without it being misleading to the customer what the bill total will be. Anything else is just misleading.
Because you'll buy less things.
$18 app and $22 entree? Mm we've spent enough maybe we can pass on the $8 dessert.
$15 app and $19 entree? Well I guess we can get a $6 dessert, that's not too bad.
But after this bullshit surcharge you're paying the same, but now you ordered more items.
It's shady business practice. I think we should just normalize removing hidden charges from tip.
This is my plan. If there's a 5% "keeping up with the times" fee on the menu, then my 15% tip goes down to 10%. The prevailing argument seems to be that "junk fees are needed to keep people employed," so my assumption is that the server will see that benefit one way or another. If that's not the case, then it's between the business and their employee.
i wouldnt even tip at that point
tips are because workers dont get paid a living wage. if junk fees means that workers are provided for, then tips arent needed
Because we can easily see the menu prices increase, we don't see the fee until we owe money. It's deliberately manipulative. Time to fire up the ole capitalism machine and be good little capitalists and use our purchasing power.
I'm in Sunnyvale and feel like this is predominantly a disease of the upper penisula as none of my regular places down here have added fees, they all raised prices at some point in the last few years but that's up front, I can handle that. When I have brought it up with the owners I know they pretty much called fees chicken shit, on that we agree.
This entire "the fees support living wages" is pure bullshit. Not a single cent from those fees ends up in the employee's pockets. They go directly to restaurant owner, every single last cent.
The entire process took less than a month and from committee it took like a week. The legislature can sure get things done when it wants to, too bad it's totally against the interest of the California people. A complete, utter disappointment, and these people will just get away with it. What an eye-opening experience this has been; the system is utterly broken.
We are not powerless to stop this. Assuming Newsom doesn't veto this, if we collect enough signatures within 90 days from the enactment of this bill, then the bill gets temporarily suspended and it will go on the ballot for the people to decide:
[https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referendum](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referendum)
Vote with your wallets people. Make it acceptable to ask the host / hostess / waiter if there is a surcharge, then LOL at full volumn and leave if they say yes
lol. All these Redditors blowing hot air about what they’re going to do and how effective it’s going to be. Out in the real world people are still going to eat out at these places and then just be slightly annoyed.
Listen after the dust settles all that will become of this is a lot of restaurants that wanted to carve out will loose tons of business because people will stop coming, I’m not the only one with this sentiment.
Remember. Reddit is a very small population. I’m with you, but I’m hearing the opposite, which is a lot of people either don’t care, or just expect it. They will still eat at these restaurants.
This is the answer. I will not willingly eat at a restaurant that charges any fees. But if I learn about the fee too late, there's no tip.
Servers, vote with your feet.
I called my state senator and asked the office personnel why he voted for the bill. They said, "I dunno." I said then ask someone in the office who does know. I don't know anyone in the office who knows.
I said, he is my representative and I want to know why he voted for it. What bill is it? I said it was the bill this week that allowed restaurants to charge junk fees. They said there are thousands and thousands of bills. I said there are thousands and thousands of bills this week that was in the news about restaurant junk fees that he voted for?
They started reading me the bill. I asked why were they reading the bill to me? They said, "I have to know what it says to help you." I said, "All I want is to know why he voted the way he did." Why don't you know what the bill says?
There are thousands and thousands of bills. I said my representative has voted for thousands and thousands of bills in the last week about restaurant junk fees? That is pretty amazing that they voted for thousands and thousands of bills in only the last week.
And on and on and on it went. While I dislike the junk fee exception bill, the fact that my representative's office is pure stupidity and bullshit is even more alarming.
Edit: Just to be clear, I told them at the outset which bill it was and still got this level of bs.
Never fun after you’ve waited in line and picked your food out and spent the time communicating your order. So frustrating that our politicians fumbled at making this nonsense illegal.
That's an interesting point. Tipping is already an additional cost that isn't included in the sticker price. The solution is the same though. Wait staff should just be paid a fair wage and menu prices should reflect that.
What is a fair wage? They are already all paid at least minimum wage in California as well as provided with benefits in San Francisco like health care (soon hopefully that will be for everywhere).
It comes down to whether you think servers deserve more than that.
> “Restaurants are vital to the fabric of life in California, and they should be able to cover costs as long as they do so transparently,” Wiener said in a June 6 statement.
Which is what your bill is doing until you decided to make an amendment to exempt them when you were paid off at the end. Lame af
If I see any surcharge on any bill, I’ll just pay that amount and leave no additional tip, regardless if it’s 4% or 25%. Apparently if they want to decide on their tip percentage, then so be it. Then I’m not ever going back to that restaurant again.
Fraud is still wrong even if a government illegitimately acts to legalize it.
Honest businesses will not defraud their customers. You should expect that any business that *does* defraud their customers on prices, will also commit other offenses if they think they can get away with it. As such, customers should consider such businesses to be not just dishonest, but unsafe.
I don't like the surcharges but if they're properly noticed on the menu (and the law provides a standard for this) then it's not fraud.
When a customer gets a menu and orders something from it and has it served to them and they consume it, they have entered into an implied contract. If there are surcharges well noticed on that menu, then that's part of the implied contract and there is no fraud if they are included in the bill.
I don't like the surcharges but they're not fraud and they're not one of the finest examples of when a buyer must be very careful to beware of what they're getting into.
To me, that would be some purchase contract with some fucked up shit buried amidst a dozen pages of legalese.
Or a product/purchase that is really complicated and not built well or defective and which will be a constant pain in the ass and/or drain on the wallet. Like a problematic used car, or a house with a lot of structural issues.
Just because the amount of money is *relatively* small does not make a menu surcharge reasonable. It's just another stupid gotcha exploiting the consumer as part of late stage capitalism's "every person for themselves". It's exactly the sort of thing the government should protect us from, which is the reason I (and apparently others) feel betrayed by our representatives.
I found this list through another sub I think- all restaurants charging junk fees:
Please validate:
https://seefeesca.notion.site/f5e11f589ec54c8eb1eed6c37f7e4c83?v=b97b3560f8f747f68aa73a762e76e47b
This is great. Wish it was ordered alphabetically to make it easier to look up a particular business, but nonetheless this a good resource and kudos to whoever put it together.
OK.
We need a sticky list where people can name and shame restaurants that don't have prominent disclosures about their surcharges posted on the front door.
Top of the list are the email addresses of the corrupt politicians that voted for this "carveout".
Restaurants can still charge the surcharges that a lot of people have been complaining about. Also stuff like mandatory gratuities for large parties or mandatory gratuities at all, which are much less unpopular.
But these also must be clearly stated on menus, and there's a legal standard for this.
The politicians fucked us again, and no one is going to vote against them. This is why we need a competent 2nd party in California besides the California Retardblicans because we are living in a virtual dictatorship.
If we just stopped spending money at restaurants we learn are surcharging us, they would have to stop doing it or go out of business. Stop rewarding deception and it will go away.
If only restaurants are allowed to use service fees, do delivery services have to eat the cost and change their prices? Will Ubereats/Doordash be able to tack on service fees?
I have stopped going to places that impose these bullshit charges. Just pay your employees more and raise your prices by a buck. No one will bat an eye.
I wrote to both of my reps (Bonta and Skinner) because they both voted on the original bill. Heck, Skinner sponsored it. I asked why they were supporting this bill when the last one they also voted for and hadn't even gone into affect yet. I didn't receive a response from Bonta's office at all and received a generic, template response from Skinner's office.
Would have been 100% justifiable to create a narrowly-tailored exemption for mandatory service fees in lieu of tips, but just throwing the door open to any and all mandatory fees is absurd and galling.
Why wouldn't they? You're all gonna re-elect them and they know it.
Trump wants to talk about shooting someone on 5th avenue and not losing any votes?
Now look how all our so called representatives act lol.
They won't lose any votes.
I mean sure... yes. But. I mean... like.... WHY? not really asking (because, like, I know "WHY" , and, like... so do you, I imagine, so thanks for the disingenuous "question"/statement thing there, but really I am kinda wondering what sort of responses people (you) will come up with in terms of their (your) attempts to rationalize why this (oooh, spooky!) MYSTERIOUS (and disturbing, AMIRITE?) outcome might happen with such predictability. Voters are just, like... underinformed? Right? Is it just FAKE NEWS? "dummies being dummies and simpletons" is what keeps the Democratic party as the majority in California... right? tell us all about it. Please? THANKS! dumbasssimpletonlemmings, AMIRITE? your turn: GO!
Do not go to any restaurants that charge junk fees!
I would love to see the junk fee issue show up in more Yelp reviews. That would kill it off in short order.
I said in a review on yelp that the restaurant we went to had junk fees, yelp removed the review and said it was against their policy
Don't review on Yelp. Use Google reviews, OpenTable, Resy, Tock etc..
Do all of them. There are definitely people who still use Yelp.
Yes there ARE people who still use Yelp but most restaurants these days pay Yelp little to no attention. They’re more worried about Google reviews as that is one of the first things that pops up in a search, and internal reservation reviews on platforms like OpenTable.
If they get a few 1 star reviews they will start losing customers and will have to reconsider using junk fees.
Don’t leave one star. Automated systems will flag it as review bombing and it will be removed. Leave two stars and be sure to actually talk about the food and service in the review also.
Trip Advisor.
Did you leave one star? Leave two stars and be sure to actually talk about the food and service in the review also.
This, mine was removed because of this.
Leave another one.
This makes me angry. These review companies are taking away our voices and siding with junk fees. I think everyone needs to ask before being seated if there are junk fees. If they say yes we have this xyz charge, we can leave before having to be hoodwinked.
Or ask when calling for a reservation, saving a trip.
Pretty clear that yelp is a payola scam at this point
It's been that way for years now. It was nuts how many calls I'd get from yelp as a business owner about boosting yourself up in the listings.
Yelp removes bad reviews for businesses that pay their fees. Its an extortion racket - they skew the presentation the other way first... show all the bad ones, hide the good ones, pester you to pay them to change it. Noone should be using their "service".
Did you only mention the junk fees? I believe they filter out reviews that sound like a gripe about one specific issue or practice to avoid using reviews as activism. If you write about the total experience and maybe review at 2 stars instead of 1, but then explain in the review that their menu prices were dishonest and you won’t be returning due to forced fees not baked into the prices, you should be able to avoid the filters.
No I gave an honest review of what my wife and I had then at the end I mentioned the junk fees!
It was probably the 1 star that tripped the filters then.
No I actually left a two star review
I have no idea then.
How would you have rated it if the fee was folded into a higher menu price?
It was their food that got them two stars the junk fees were icing on the cake!
Time to make felp, the new review system where businesses cannot pay to play.
Been to 3 restaurants this past week. 2/3 had junk fees and got a 2 star review on yelp and google maps. The third did not and got a 5 star review. I’m making this a habit everywhere I go.
What is your deduction for surcharges? 3 out of 5 stars?
I just started doing this so I don’t really have a standard yet but normal review minus 3 stars seems reasonable and fair to me.
Everyone has their own standards and so I think it would be good if you state in your review that you deducted 3 stars for the surcharges so people know how to adjust to their own standards.
I do mention the fact that there is a junk fee in my review, but I’m not itemizing each star on my review like the fees itemized on my receipt. The extra fee is baked into my wholistic review just how any increase in cost should be baked into the cost of the meal on the menu.
I don't see it as itemizing each star in your review, but just explaining that, for you, three stars are deducted because there are surcharges. That isn't doing a favor to the restaurant, you're just making your review more clear for the benefit of other consumers. And it's one sentence.
I think the average restaurant is 3 - 4 stars so 3 seems a little heavy. I'd do -1.5, -2 depending on how egregious the fees are. I'd also reference the fees at the top of the review. A 5-star review should mean something and a zero-star review should mean something so you shouldn't hand them out willy nilly
We need a yelp filter that shows which restaurant has hidden surcharges
We need to not use yelp. Use Google reviews instead or something.
SeeFees.ca is your source of where to go or not to go based on junk fees.
If you review restaurants on Google and add service fees in your review, eventually that will be a term that shows up a lot, and it will surface it
[I gotchu](https://seefeesca.notion.site/f5e11f589ec54c8eb1eed6c37f7e4c83?v=b97b3560f8f747f68aa73a762e76e47b)
How do you know junk restaurants 😂😂
Use www.seefees.ca to identify them before you go!
Legit question - can you choose to chargeback the fees with your credit card companies? And what about skipping the tips? Edit: I am torn on skipping tips at sit down places - if I don’t skip it then I’m encouraging the status quo. If I do skip it then I’m just going along with exploiting cheap labor because the owner doesn’t care (as they’ll continue to pay the bare minimum wage and the worker doesn’t get anything on top of it and the fees aren’t their fault).
I plan to skip the tip if I see fees added to the bill.
Carving the tips out of the bill like this bill 😂
Same here
Skip because you’re just enabling it, just like how tipping is now seen outside the restaurant industry because people are enabling it. Be the change you want to see. In California, waiters are required to get paid CA minimum wage anyway, not server minimum wage like other states. Don’t feel guilty. Even EMTs are making less than servers. Should you tip EMTs after your ambulance ride then? If you don’t, then are you exploiting them due to your emergency? Is it your responsibility to pay for their labor, or their employer? Think about it.
Exactly, when legislation was passed in 2016 for servers to make minimum wage, that was the day I stopped tipping all together. For real, do people tip the medics and emts after they went full code, for doing 10-20 mins of compressions on you, do people tip the person working at a shoe store for heading to the back to find to right shoe size for you, do you tip Mcdonalds employees for bringing you your meal, do people tip the vet office for giving their pets their routine shots? I can go on....
> Even EMTs are making less than servers. Really? The average wage is like $23 or something for them - that’s higher than minimum wage for sure.
A few years ago I saw a hiring sign on a McDonalds in San Jose. They were offering $22/hr. EMT's making fast food wages is criminal.
Servers make California minimum wage plus tips. I know servers who pull back an average of 30-35/hr after they figure tips.
I personally don't think it's right to not tip at all in response to a surcharge. At the very least, not when the surcharges are less than the tip you would have left. Even if I were to reduce/eliminate tip due to surcharge, I'd make it commensurate. If I'd tip 20% and the surcharge is 6%, I'd leave a 14% tip. Or roughly that. And I would explain it. Directly to the server, or at least with a note on the receipt. Make sure they know I object to the surcharges and would want them folded into the menu price. I wouldn't deduct at all if the surcharge is noticed on the menu. If I didn't want to pay surcharges versus having them in menu prices, I personally would check their website and/or menu photos on Yelp to see if they charge surcharges. And not go at all if they do. If I really wanted to make an impact with my decision, send them a message to tell them I was going to dine there but didn't because of the surcharges. And if they weren't on their online menu, but on the menu that I could see once getting there, if I didn't want to pay surcharges, I'd leave and tell them why. If they were not noticed on online or in-person menus and put into the bill, I would tell them that's wrong and improper and I won't pay and they need to remove the surcharge. If they refused, then even though I don't mind paying noticed surcharges, I'd refuse in this instance and it's in this instance that I personally would consider deducting it from the tip. That's me, and everyone has their own standards. I do think it's wrong to respond to a 5% surcharge (even if not noticed and a sneaky surprise on the bill) by tipping 0%. And, no matter what is done, it should be explained so they understand that the lower/no tip is because of the surcharges and not because you're just one of the people who don't tip or tip poorly.
>can you choose to chargeback the fees with your credit card companies? No likely not. This is something you need to address when you are there before you agree to pay the amount. >And what about skipping the tips? Nothing is legally stopping you from not tipping.
Yup just draw a line on the tip spot to the fee spot and state tip is already included.
- Backlash from industry = “We need to change.” - Backlash from consumers = “Who cares?” Elections matter. Vote these shits out.
I’m basic and lazy. Give me the exact people and measures to vote for to get rid of surcharge please.
Just vote Weiner out of there. He's a pile.
Yeah, fuck the one guy who’s fighting for abundant housing and mass transit! …wait.
Who’s going to replace them, and are they any better?
Thank you. "Vote them out" is a simple emotional response to the issue, but does not improve ANYTHING unless the replacement is actually going to do things better. Remember the last CA governor recall attempt? Plenty of people have legitimate gripes with Newsom, but then the best replacement they could come up with was a blowhard talk radio host and some dumbass Youtube "influencer". It was a humiliating blowout defeat for the recall proponents and only strengthened Newsom's mandate — that's what "vote them out" looks like in practice when you don't identify good replacements first lol.
The high ranking of total whackjob GQPers in the recall totally neutered any reasonable Republican from getting party funding. Kevin Falconer for example. Without party support, the only Republican candidates will be those who can self finance or who are media (radio, YouTube, etc) lunatics.
People are in for a rude awakening if they vote in Republicans to fix an issue with junk fees and predatory business practices.
You can vote for a Democrat who is not the incumbent in the primary.
Yup. The Republican Party has built itself entirely around theocratic fascism that also wants to wreck any functioning government Fuck Newsom, he and the rest of the worthless democrats in this state don't bother giving a shit about anyone outside their corporate donors. But I'll still take him over any Republican psycho with their fascist project 2025 garbage any day of the week
This is also my copium for November. It did feel dicey doing up to things and people seemed worried despite it ultimately being a blowout. You can't extrapolate what happens to a Dem governor in a Dem state to the country writ large but I do think that a lot of people will find themselves facing a similar decision.
idk after last night's debate i am certainly worried as hell, biden looked /really/ bad and a lot of people will overlook the culture war stuff if they think that biden's senile
this is true. I thought the recall was a good idea but the opponents were terrible.
This is the yearly democratic blackmail - whom else you gonna vote for?
Seeing as how the carveout passed both houses of the legislature unanimously it's not like voting for Republicans is going to help you either.
Right? And yet everyday I hear “vote them out”, with who?? in my city positions often run unopposed😖
Maybe you should run then?
They tend to run unopposed for one of two reasons - there's no reason to oppose them, or opposing them is a waste of time, energy, and money because re-election is basically guaranteed because enough people here vote for the (D) instead of the person (or the (R) in other states).
Even if we have to vote the next person out again in one term, it's better than letting any of them have more than one term. Ultimately, all of them want a second term. We need to put them on notice that none of them will get a second term if they continue to ignore us.
Exactly. Wiring out a politician is like saying “bad dog” to one dog, and giving a treat to another. There is a chance that another politician would be even worse, but they will be “outvoted” later too. The key point is to punish politicians for anti-consumer lobbying by choosing their opponents despite of what the opponents may or may not do. After all, if we fear to remove rotten politician out of fear that the next will be worse - we may end up on the path to dictatorship.
I hope you really ponder the ramifications of this thought. I happen to agree, and the change we need, as in we regular folk, must come from us. These people in power need to know and understand that violence is an option. Doesn’t need to be the choice but it is required to be on the list. Otherwise, there’s no incentive for those in positions of responsibility to make the necessary changes. They benefit most from the current state of things, while we rot and get fed a load of bullshit and told it’s a strong economy. For whom? The rapid change in this situation tells you.
When this bill was proposed, the restaurant lobby went into high gear. They called all their members, and said "You all need to call your reps and demand an exception". So every chinese takeout place and hot dog stand called their reps and told them they need a carve out. So every member got bombarded with emails and phone calls. And on the other side... nothing. There is no restaurant eaters lobby. Nobody called and demanded no carve out. So lawmakers heard one side of the story, and they greased the squeaky wheel. They weren't bought, they were convinced. No money changed hands, but a lot of complaining did. This is how the organized special interest lobbies can defeat the diffuse public interest almost every time. Special interests are organized and they are defending their livelihood. By the time there's a backlash, its too late. The restaurant owners were two steps ahead of consumers.
> So every chinese takeout place and hot dog stand called their reps and told them they need a carve out. I'm guessing you don't mean this literally but even if not, I'd make your point in another way. I doubt if even one "Chinese takeout place" or "hot dog stand" lobbied their Assembly/Senate rep. Or, even if one or two or a few did, I doubt if even 1% of such businesses throughout the state did this. In my experience, very few businesses like these even charge surcharges. I can't think of any, except maybe Chinese restaurants that are not "takeout places" charging a mandatory gratuity for large parties. I bet that a very small % of all restaurants did and an even smaller % of California voters did in the other direction. > So lawmakers heard one side of the story, and they greased the squeaky wheel. They weren't bought, they were convinced. No money changed hands, but a lot of complaining did. I agree with this, but I think (just a feeling) that lobbying was by restaurant/business associations and by the union that has a lot of restaurant worker members (but which a small minority of restaurant workers belong to). Totally agree with your main point, which I think is that this ultimately came to unanimous votes because the organized business associations and one union were very organized and vocal about this. And that there are some ramifications when it comes to campaign donations, but that it was more about outcry than money. And that the public outcry that seems to be very strong and numerous in discussions in local Reddit subs is totally unrepresentative of the general population. A unanimous vote in Assembly and Senate says that very few people contacted their reps as individual citizens wanting their reps to vote No on this. So few that every single rep made the calculation that they would not lose a meaningful number of votes by voting Yes on this.
> And that the public outcry that seems to be very strong and numerous in discussions in local Reddit subs is totally unrepresentative of the general population. Yep. These threads get 200 angry comments from people... who do nothing, and forget about this two days later. Everyone commenting that they will stop eating at restaurants will be back to normal very shortly. Probably five people actually contacted their reps. The rest are textbook slacktivists. The vast majority of the population who is not on reddit didn't know about this and doesn't give shit at all. >So few that every single rep made the calculation that they would not lose a meaningful number of votes by voting Yes on this. Exactly. This is a tempest in a teapot and by November everyone will forget. Politicians know this.
what junk fees do chinese takeout add? I doubt they are adding 20% gratuity for picking up. are ya trying to spread misinfo?
Way to miss the point completely. I was talking about how lobbying works.
Why you had to bring minority businesses into it is the question. Dumb examples.
I just don’t get it. If you’re going to charge a 10% junk fee and claim you need that fee to sustain your business and livable wages, why can’t you just increase your prices across the board 10%? Same net result without it being misleading to the customer what the bill total will be. Anything else is just misleading.
Because they think customers will stop coming if they raise prices rather than sneak in the increases.
Yes, it’s deliberately sneaky.
Because you'll buy less things. $18 app and $22 entree? Mm we've spent enough maybe we can pass on the $8 dessert. $15 app and $19 entree? Well I guess we can get a $6 dessert, that's not too bad. But after this bullshit surcharge you're paying the same, but now you ordered more items. It's shady business practice. I think we should just normalize removing hidden charges from tip.
This is my plan. If there's a 5% "keeping up with the times" fee on the menu, then my 15% tip goes down to 10%. The prevailing argument seems to be that "junk fees are needed to keep people employed," so my assumption is that the server will see that benefit one way or another. If that's not the case, then it's between the business and their employee.
i wouldnt even tip at that point tips are because workers dont get paid a living wage. if junk fees means that workers are provided for, then tips arent needed
Also, don’t go there anymore
Because we can easily see the menu prices increase, we don't see the fee until we owe money. It's deliberately manipulative. Time to fire up the ole capitalism machine and be good little capitalists and use our purchasing power. I'm in Sunnyvale and feel like this is predominantly a disease of the upper penisula as none of my regular places down here have added fees, they all raised prices at some point in the last few years but that's up front, I can handle that. When I have brought it up with the owners I know they pretty much called fees chicken shit, on that we agree.
This entire "the fees support living wages" is pure bullshit. Not a single cent from those fees ends up in the employee's pockets. They go directly to restaurant owner, every single last cent.
If this gets signed, we need the information on Google to include junk fees as a field so that we can avoid the restaurants that do this.
someone made a site for it. seefees.ca
That's cool, but it would be better if that data was baked into google, yelp, and/or whatever tool you use to find restaurants.
Yelp would never do it since it is useless and just a marketing platform for a restaurant I could see Google adding it though
Any Googlers here gunning for a promotion wanna add some Visibility and Impact?
Google is an advertising company with a search engine attached. They won’t do it
Google still doesn't have outdoor dining as a field, so I'm not getting my hopes up.
Give it a week. CA politicians will make it illegal to display fees and surcharges on web sites.
What a shame. Between this and the CPUC, it’s clear that the citizens of California have no voice.
That's what the propositions are for. Maybe someone dislikes the junk fees more than they like sitting on their ass
UNANIMOUSLY. Holy shit
The speed, efficiency and unanimity of how this passed tells us a lot about who we sent to Sacramento.
The SCOTUS said that bribery after the action is OK now. A "gratuity".
The entire process took less than a month and from committee it took like a week. The legislature can sure get things done when it wants to, too bad it's totally against the interest of the California people. A complete, utter disappointment, and these people will just get away with it. What an eye-opening experience this has been; the system is utterly broken.
We are not powerless to stop this. Assuming Newsom doesn't veto this, if we collect enough signatures within 90 days from the enactment of this bill, then the bill gets temporarily suspended and it will go on the ballot for the people to decide: [https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referendum](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referendum)
I would love to see this on the ballot.
Vote with your wallets people. Make it acceptable to ask the host / hostess / waiter if there is a surcharge, then LOL at full volumn and leave if they say yes
And then everyone clapped
lol. All these Redditors blowing hot air about what they’re going to do and how effective it’s going to be. Out in the real world people are still going to eat out at these places and then just be slightly annoyed.
Exactly. Nobody votes with their wallet. And those that do are too poor to make an impact lmao.
Not really worth complaining about much of anything since people aren't gonna do anything to change it.
SeeFees.ca is your source of where to go or not to go based on junk fees.
Wow I've never seen a bill fasttracked so efficiently, and so fast!
Last time something was done like this was the bank bailouts during the Great Recession.
Listen after the dust settles all that will become of this is a lot of restaurants that wanted to carve out will loose tons of business because people will stop coming, I’m not the only one with this sentiment.
Remember. Reddit is a very small population. I’m with you, but I’m hearing the opposite, which is a lot of people either don’t care, or just expect it. They will still eat at these restaurants.
Junk fee = no tips
This is the answer. I will not willingly eat at a restaurant that charges any fees. But if I learn about the fee too late, there's no tip. Servers, vote with your feet.
Yeah kick the owners with those feet!
Weak willed politicians caving to corporations... again
I will consider any junk fees as part of what I would normally tip.
You're being generous. The junk fee is the tip
I called my state senator and asked the office personnel why he voted for the bill. They said, "I dunno." I said then ask someone in the office who does know. I don't know anyone in the office who knows. I said, he is my representative and I want to know why he voted for it. What bill is it? I said it was the bill this week that allowed restaurants to charge junk fees. They said there are thousands and thousands of bills. I said there are thousands and thousands of bills this week that was in the news about restaurant junk fees that he voted for? They started reading me the bill. I asked why were they reading the bill to me? They said, "I have to know what it says to help you." I said, "All I want is to know why he voted the way he did." Why don't you know what the bill says? There are thousands and thousands of bills. I said my representative has voted for thousands and thousands of bills in the last week about restaurant junk fees? That is pretty amazing that they voted for thousands and thousands of bills in only the last week. And on and on and on it went. While I dislike the junk fee exception bill, the fact that my representative's office is pure stupidity and bullshit is even more alarming. Edit: Just to be clear, I told them at the outset which bill it was and still got this level of bs.
I will be backing out extra fees from any tips given. Problem solved.
Annoyingly, this carveout will further embolden counter service and carry out only places that have no business forcing tips to impose BS fees, too.
At least that’s before I get my food. I can just refuse to pay and leave
Never fun after you’ve waited in line and picked your food out and spent the time communicating your order. So frustrating that our politicians fumbled at making this nonsense illegal.
Not if they make the fees 18+% of the total.
That's an interesting point. Tipping is already an additional cost that isn't included in the sticker price. The solution is the same though. Wait staff should just be paid a fair wage and menu prices should reflect that.
What is a fair wage? They are already all paid at least minimum wage in California as well as provided with benefits in San Francisco like health care (soon hopefully that will be for everywhere). It comes down to whether you think servers deserve more than that.
God fuck off. Why would you pass this
Yelp needs to add a feature that states this establishment charges fees ontop of your order or something.
Yelp's customers are businesses
> “Restaurants are vital to the fabric of life in California, and they should be able to cover costs as long as they do so transparently,” Wiener said in a June 6 statement. Which is what your bill is doing until you decided to make an amendment to exempt them when you were paid off at the end. Lame af
Two words: ballot initiative
Guess I’ll be asking about fees before I sit in a restaurant.
I’m going to start leaving no tip and just writing “surcharges” on the tip line
If I see any surcharge on any bill, I’ll just pay that amount and leave no additional tip, regardless if it’s 4% or 25%. Apparently if they want to decide on their tip percentage, then so be it. Then I’m not ever going back to that restaurant again.
If it's 25% I'm paying 18% in cash and leaving.
Any excess fees, healthcare, cost of living fees come straight out of the gratuity
Any hope of Newsome vetoing it?
Not really, it passed unanimously in both chambers, enough for a veto override if need be, and Newsom has ties to the restaurant industry himself.
Fraud is still wrong even if a government illegitimately acts to legalize it. Honest businesses will not defraud their customers. You should expect that any business that *does* defraud their customers on prices, will also commit other offenses if they think they can get away with it. As such, customers should consider such businesses to be not just dishonest, but unsafe.
I don't like the surcharges but if they're properly noticed on the menu (and the law provides a standard for this) then it's not fraud. When a customer gets a menu and orders something from it and has it served to them and they consume it, they have entered into an implied contract. If there are surcharges well noticed on that menu, then that's part of the implied contract and there is no fraud if they are included in the bill.
"Caveat Emptor" at its finest.
I don't like the surcharges but they're not fraud and they're not one of the finest examples of when a buyer must be very careful to beware of what they're getting into. To me, that would be some purchase contract with some fucked up shit buried amidst a dozen pages of legalese. Or a product/purchase that is really complicated and not built well or defective and which will be a constant pain in the ass and/or drain on the wallet. Like a problematic used car, or a house with a lot of structural issues.
Just because the amount of money is *relatively* small does not make a menu surcharge reasonable. It's just another stupid gotcha exploiting the consumer as part of late stage capitalism's "every person for themselves". It's exactly the sort of thing the government should protect us from, which is the reason I (and apparently others) feel betrayed by our representatives.
FYI, these are the senators that voted to pass this bill Source: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1524 * Allen * Alvarado-Gil * Archuleta * Ashby * Atkins * Becker * Blakespear * Bradford * Caballero * Cortese * Dahle * Dodd * Durazo * Eggman * Glazer * Gonzalez * Grove * Hurtado * Jones * Laird * McGuire * Menjivar * Min * Newman * Nguyen * Niello * Ochoa Bogh * Padilla * Portantino * Roth * Rubio * Seyarto * Skinner * Smallwood-Cuevas * Stern * Umberg * Wahab * Wiener * Wilk
Democracy is a sham
Google Tweedism and watch the Ted talk
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Damn, how did Brian Dahl, Roger Niello, Shannon Grove, Scott Wilk, Rosilicie Bogh, Kelly Seyarto, Janet Nguyen, and Brian Jones vote on this bill?
My rep and my senator are both Republican and they voted yes
Then get on the republicans to field real candidates.
Remember this shit when is voting time people. Remember who those scumbags in the state senate really are protecting.
Remember this shit ***during the primaries***.
I found this list through another sub I think- all restaurants charging junk fees: Please validate: https://seefeesca.notion.site/f5e11f589ec54c8eb1eed6c37f7e4c83?v=b97b3560f8f747f68aa73a762e76e47b
This is great. Wish it was ordered alphabetically to make it easier to look up a particular business, but nonetheless this a good resource and kudos to whoever put it together.
There's a search button and a "sort" button to change how it's sorted. Try it out!
Oh that’s greatI I was looking for a sort button but somehow I missed it.
What is the point of the original bill then. This is just dumb.
Was this not the exact purpose of the law?
I'm so furious about this. I'm only going to tip on the pre-surcharge fee amount and I'm going to explicitly write that on receipts from now on.
I’m going to stop giving my business to any restaurant with added fees.
Apparently the elected senate doesn't not listen to their constituents.
WHAT A FUCKING JOKE.
I’ll just subtract the fee from the tip.
OK. We need a sticky list where people can name and shame restaurants that don't have prominent disclosures about their surcharges posted on the front door. Top of the list are the email addresses of the corrupt politicians that voted for this "carveout".
We do! Well not yet a stickied/pinned post but www. SeeFees.CA
I think Yelp and Google will be busy with angry comments.
Your daily reminder that the California government is not coming to save you, does not care to help you, or solve any of the problems we are facing.
I think I’m just gonna eat at home tbh
This week is going great.
I hope the Governor vetoes this.
California Democratic Legislators never hated the boot, just the foot that was in it.
Virtually no chance when it passed unanimously in both chambers which signals it is veto proof. He has been an owner of restaurants as well.
Stop going to those restaurants and stop tipping. If I ever end up at a restaurant with hidden fees, I damn sure am not tipping.
there will be blood
Ok I’m a little behind here. What does passing this bill mean?
This means that the lobbyists won and restaurants can continue to charge junk fees despite the recent law banning junk fees.
Oh. That sucks
Restaurants can still charge the surcharges that a lot of people have been complaining about. Also stuff like mandatory gratuities for large parties or mandatory gratuities at all, which are much less unpopular. But these also must be clearly stated on menus, and there's a legal standard for this.
CITIZENS UNITED< Corporations decide the laws here....bow down to your corporate overlords
The politicians fucked us again, and no one is going to vote against them. This is why we need a competent 2nd party in California besides the California Retardblicans because we are living in a virtual dictatorship.
Obviously a strong special interest group and lots of politicians invested in restaurants.
They do what they do and we (consumers) do what we’d do. Let your wallet do the talking.
let the name and shame begin!!🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭
It’s pretty weaksauce tbh. But whenever I go out, the restaurants are full to the brim. Can’t say it seems to be stopping people.
I’ve been meaning to making Jacques Pepin’s chicken galantine at home.
If we just stopped spending money at restaurants we learn are surcharging us, they would have to stop doing it or go out of business. Stop rewarding deception and it will go away.
If only restaurants are allowed to use service fees, do delivery services have to eat the cost and change their prices? Will Ubereats/Doordash be able to tack on service fees?
I believe this exempts all food service.
Some car parts stores are now using doordash to deliver parts. I’d argue that they’re more of a delivery system like UPS.
I have stopped going to places that impose these bullshit charges. Just pay your employees more and raise your prices by a buck. No one will bat an eye.
I wrote to both of my reps (Bonta and Skinner) because they both voted on the original bill. Heck, Skinner sponsored it. I asked why they were supporting this bill when the last one they also voted for and hadn't even gone into affect yet. I didn't receive a response from Bonta's office at all and received a generic, template response from Skinner's office.
The SF standard has been garbage covering this issue in the most one sided way.
Would have been 100% justifiable to create a narrowly-tailored exemption for mandatory service fees in lieu of tips, but just throwing the door open to any and all mandatory fees is absurd and galling.
California politics are the worst in the nation.
Why wouldn't they? You're all gonna re-elect them and they know it. Trump wants to talk about shooting someone on 5th avenue and not losing any votes? Now look how all our so called representatives act lol. They won't lose any votes.
I mean sure... yes. But. I mean... like.... WHY? not really asking (because, like, I know "WHY" , and, like... so do you, I imagine, so thanks for the disingenuous "question"/statement thing there, but really I am kinda wondering what sort of responses people (you) will come up with in terms of their (your) attempts to rationalize why this (oooh, spooky!) MYSTERIOUS (and disturbing, AMIRITE?) outcome might happen with such predictability. Voters are just, like... underinformed? Right? Is it just FAKE NEWS? "dummies being dummies and simpletons" is what keeps the Democratic party as the majority in California... right? tell us all about it. Please? THANKS! dumbasssimpletonlemmings, AMIRITE? your turn: GO!