NYC caps restaurant delivery app service fees during COVID-19:
Third-party food delivery services like Grubhub, DoorDash and Postmates operating in New York City won't be allowed to charge restaurants more than 20 percent commission on orders during states of emergency like the coronavirus pandemic, according to a bill passed by New York City Council members on Wednesday. These apps can charge restaurants fees of more than 30 percent per order, cutting into profits at a time when COVID-19 has shut their doors except for takeout and delivery orders.
The legislation restricts fees charged by third-party food delivery services during states of emergency when restaurants are prohibited from serving customers in-house, and for 90 days afterward. During these periods, the services can only charge up to 15% per order for providing delivery services, and no more than a 5% fee per order for other types of charges (like credit card processing and marketing).
Violations of the law could mean fines up to $1,000 per restaurant per day for the delivery services.
[Editors Note: fixed typo 14May07:20 to "no more than"]--JR]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @06:14AM (3 children)
During a period of parental corona-illness, the children must use remote acquisition of nutrition to self-thrive. This is the first step towards child suffrage. There is no scientific reason a legally registered entity must be an arbitrary number of years old to qualify as a votee. Biological age is not equivalent to mental age.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @11:22AM
Never have I seen the state of politics in the USA put so clearly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @01:07PM
Maybe we should bring back IQ testing to vote? Wait, that was racist.
Fuck it I guess let's just let six year olds vote then, you make a great point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @05:41PM
Is that the political franchise aspect of the "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed," argument? I've always been enamored of the "old enough to pee, old enough for me" position.
Reasonable people can disagree, eh?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 14 2020, @01:34PM (3 children)
That makes it unaffordable to deliver small orders.
The cost to the delivery service of performing a restaurant delivery is largely independent on the price of the order.
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @02:43PM (1 child)
You are trying to explain Fisical realities to Democratic administration.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @05:59PM
You obviously don't live in NYC. It's not the "delivery" service that's at issue, as many (if not most) delis, inexpensive mom & pop restaurants and the like generally have (or had, the usurious, rent-seeking fees charged by these apps/services have forced many restaurants to close) their own delivery people.
The issue is that the exploitative contracts (think ISPs) "offered" by these services (I'm looking at you, Grubhub/Seamless, Deivery.com, etc.) require restaurants to charge the same price whether in person or through these services -- despite the fact that these "services" (basically a website and credit card processing) charge up to %30 on every single order -- delivery services cost extra on top of that.
What's more, these scumbags post their own phone numbers on their (often fake representation that they are the restaurant directly, not the service) websites and forward them to the restaurants, charging the restaurants (30%) for orders which don't even use their services -- like cash orders made over the phone and delivered by employees of the restaurant.
Yes, I do realize that things work differently in other places in the US. However, this is happening in NYC, and NYC is taking action, not the rest of the country.
An apt analogy (sorry, no cars) would be Visa and Mastercard charging 30% fees on every transaction. How long would your local gas station stay in business if every time someone used a credit/debit card, 30% of the charge went to VISA/MC and the gas station was forbidden by their contract to charge more for the use of VISA/MC?
That's the situation with these scumbags. And they use all manner of trickery and misdirection to increase their take -- charging restaurants even when they have no part in transactions/orders.
tl;dr: These "services" are destroying valuable community resources and economic engines, as many mom & pop restaurants' profit margins are less than 30%. Actually, there are few businesses whose profit margins even approach that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2020, @04:33PM
Bravery and resolve will be required from our heroes as they fight to keep the Red Menace from destroying our capitalist utopia with senseless regulations. Those commies won't get away with this [cnet.com]!
And those poor, starving delivery services have only ever tried to make everyone rich! [eater.com], well, except for the restaurants and customers of those restaurants (especially inexpensive, local restaurants) who were forced to close (long before the current pandemic) because the food delivery services are FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM to suck as much as 30% from *every single order, not to deliver, but to to handle credit card transactions. Delivery charges are normally piled on top of that.
I mean it's not like these services are engaged in rent-seeking [latimes.com] and protection ("it would a shame if no one saw your restaurant on our site. You should accept the highest commission rates or folks might *never* find you") rackets [vice.com].
It's so sad that the Communists in the NYC (and San Francisco and Seattle and Washington, DC) government want to steal the food from the mouths of children of our brave, handsome Howard Roark-like heroes just for pursuing the highest calling -- bleeding the suckers -- sucking out 30+% profit acting as a middleman providing a website (and fake websites too) and handling credit card processing.
Rent-seekers of the world, unite! Stop the evil communists from limiting the amount of profit we can extract from legitimate businesses. If we don't fight now, we'll end up with more competition [chownow.com] that might hurt our profits. And that's just un-American! [Star Spangled Banner plays, bringing tears to everyone's eyes].
Competition is bad you see, because it forces us
(Score: 2) by anotherblackhat on Thursday May 14 2020, @06:57PM
What happens if they charge a fixed amount (or a fixed amount per pound)?
No delivery on orders under $5?
Do we end up having to buy gift certificates so we can get delivery?
If the government thinks the price should be at most X, they should just set up a service that charges X.
If you really have to make something illegal, make it illegal to hide fees the restaurant pays.