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The Rainbow Vegetarian Café in Cambridge, England, has announced that it will not accept the new £5 polymer notes, introduced by the Bank of England in September. Last week the British vegan community discovered that the notes contain trace amounts of beef tallow, which is animal fat, and are therefore unacceptable by their cruelty-free standards. A heated online controversy has resulted, including a petition asking the Bank to remove tallow from the polymer.
The Rainbow Café's owner, Sharon Meijland, told The Telegraph that her stance was announced last Wednesday, at the end of a BBC radio interview on the unrelated topic of Christmas food.
"We sponsor the Vegan Fair and announced on Wednesday we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically. We have been providing food for vegans for 30 years and have tried to be as ethical as we possibly can...This is not just a restaurant, it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."
Is any of our money cruelty-free?
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:45PM
That's not even remotely the same thing. There are all sorts of reasons why people don't use credit cards ranging from not being able to get one to overspending when using them. But, it's a personal decision not to use them, if somebody fails to offer credit as a form of payment, then some people won't buy from them.
Cash though, is a more universal form of payment and in the US it's legal tender for settling debt, apart from Apple, nobody refuses to take cash. This is the UK, and so our rules don't apply, but I can't imagine a functioning economy where some businesses are allowed to arbitrarily take some cash and not others other than if they suspect the cash is counterfeit. The closest thing I've ever seen is places where they refuse to take large bills.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:47PM
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:21PM
Only people with bank accounts & credit can get credit cards. People that can't get or don't have bank accounts or have bad credit can't use credit cards, but everyone can use cash. You can buy Amazon gift cards with cash and buy from Amazon with those too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:30PM
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:36PM
You also can't walk into an Amazon and buy something, you have to order off a website. Physical stores take physical money, electronic money, IOUs both physical and electronic (although the physical are less and less common), electronic stores take electronic money because they don't have the capability for anything else.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:49PM
You also can't walk into an Amazon and buy something
Exactly. And not every mail-order company sells gift cards in the local store.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:04PM
Many do accept Western Union though.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:50PM
You can buy anything from a store for cash and if you really need something online and don't have a credit card, you can buy a gift card or prepay a credit card. Not good options, but they are possible.
Credit cards require credit checks as well as having a bank and these are also decisions being made by the customer rather than the business. Businesses taking cards, but not cash are pretty much restricted to companies that are either online or dealing with such large amounts of money that it would be unwieldy to accept cash. For example, people buying and selling houses generally won't take cash.
It's also notable in that I've never heard of a business refusing small bills. Refusing 50s and 100s is fairly common as those are bills that are potentially large enough to counterfeit, but refusing a smaller bill is just weird. If they're going to be doing business with the public, then they need to provide a sane method of payment.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:46PM
A debt, and a bill are very different. A debt is incurred with out service having to be rendered, e.g. taxes both income and property, which is what the statement legal tender for debts public an private was intended for. It was designed to keep the government from taking land/property to pay taxes. A bill is for services rendered and the server can insist on not accepting a particular denomination, as illustrated by many businesses refusing high denomination bills in the late hours.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:27AM
Then don't put animal ingredients in the fucking money. How hard is that?