Service charges; resort fees; “surcharge” add-ons: If you’ve been startled by unexpected fees when you pay your check at a restaurant — or book a hotel room or buy a ticket to a game, you’re far from alone. But if you live in California, change is coming. A new state law requiring price transparency is set to take effect in July.

“The law is simple: the price you see is the price you pay,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Wednesday, as his office issued long-awaited guidance about a law that applies to thousands of businesses in a wide range of sectors.

Restaurant owners like Laurie Thomas, who heads the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, say the changes will bring higher prices and sticker shock, which could then raise a psychological hurdle in customers’ dining habits. That, in turn, will hurt restaurants and their workers, she warns.

“If it’s in the core price of the menu, there will be a pullback” in patrons’ spending, she told NPR shortly before the attorney general released the guidelines. "There are some people, I think, that are hoping that the restaurants will just absorb that cost, because we’ve seen people say, ‘Oh, it’s too expensive with the service charge.’ "

Restaurant Association head thinks it’s perfectly OK to mislead customers into thinking that prices are lower than they actually are, and gouge them after they’ve consumed/used the product. Because having knowledge of true prices would cause some customers to make informed decisions that might hurt sales. What other product information could be withheld to boost sales? What product misinformation could be provided to get those customers to “yes”?

  • QualifiedKitten@lemmy.world
    3·
    8 months ago

    Their menus will be required to list comprehensive prices for each item, with all mandatory charges baked into one figure. Only fees that are entirely optional — like leaving a tip for staff — can be left out of the posted price.

    In its new guidelines, the state says it won’t focus initial enforcement efforts on “fees that are paid directly and entirely by a restaurant to its workers, such as an automatic gratuity. However, businesses may be liable in private actions.”

    If I’m reading all that correctly, they’re saying that automatic gratuities that are paid in full to staff are supposed to be included in the listed menu price, but they won’t actually be enforcing that initially? That’s odd and bound to cause some confusion for people when some restaurants choose to take advantage of this loophole.

    Overall, this is quite exciting, but I’m still disappointed that sales tax seems to be exempt from this new law.

    • Pandemanium@lemm.ee
      2·
      8 months ago

      I feel like this will be a boon to all the restaurants who aren’t paying their staff well. Their prices will stay the same. Meanwhile, restaurants trying to pay a living wage will have much higher prices but won’t be able to tell you why. Customers will “vote with their wallets,” putting the higher paying restaurants out of business.

      Overall it’s a good idea to get rid of extraneous fees, but I feel like they didn’t quite think it all the way through.