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Sorry Amazon: Philadelphia bans cashless stores
This week, Philadelphia's mayor signed a bill that would ban cashless retail stores, according to The Morning Call. The move makes Philadelphia the first major city to require that brick-and-mortar retail stores accept cash. Besides Philadelphia, Massachusetts has required that retailers accept cash since 1978, according to CBS.
The law takes effect July 1, and it will not apply to stores like Costco that require a membership, nor will it apply to parking garages or lots, or to hotels or rental car companies that require a credit or debit card as security for future charges, according to the Wall Street Journal. Retailers caught refusing cash can be fined up to $2,000.
Amazon, whose new Amazon Go stores are cashless and queue-less, reportedly pushed back against the new law, asking for an exemption. According to the WSJ, Philadelphia lawmakers said that Amazon could work around the law under the exemption for stores that require a membership to shop there, but Amazon told the city that a Prime membership is not required to shop at Amazon Go stores, so its options are limited.
(Score: 2, Troll) by isostatic on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:21AM (7 children)
by allowing cashless shops
You're not allowing cashless shops. You're letting individual free people decide the terms they want to do business with.
The default is that everything is allowed unless it's not.
You simply want to ban cashless shops. This means you want to ban people from making their own free choices of who do do business with. It's very authoritarian.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Pino P on Tuesday March 12 2019, @01:34PM
Does "letting individual free people decide", say, not to serve black people make good policy sense? Sometimes there is another store nearby for black people to shop at instead, but sometimes there isn't.
Does "letting individual free people decide", say, not to serve people rejected by local banks make good policy sense? Sometimes there is another store nearby for people rejected by local banks to shop at instead, but sometimes there isn't.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:56PM (4 children)
Requiring shops to accept cash does not forbid individual free people from deciding who they want to do business with and how they want to pay.
If you want to shop at X and pay with cashless, then great! Do so!
Simply requiring X to also accept cash does not inhibit your choices.
The government has an interest in this. If cash cannot be spent anywhere, then it becomes useless.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Tuesday March 12 2019, @10:37PM (3 children)
Simply requiring X to also accept cash does not inhibit your choices.
Yes it does, I - a shop owner - have to accept a form of payment I don't want to.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:59AM (1 child)
Just like you - a shop owner - have to accept as a customer someone whose eye colour you don't like.
Legal tender is legal tender. You are also permitted to accept goods or services as barter provided you declare it as income.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Wednesday March 13 2019, @08:45AM
Legal tender is legal tender
That only applies for paying a debt. A resturant where you eat a meal then are presented with a bill is a debt and you are legally allowed to pay by cash
Buying a car in cash isn't paying a debt, the seller has no obligation to take your cash.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 13 2019, @02:45PM
I was not referring to shop owners, but to the shoppers who shop there. Sorry if I was unclear.
Shoppers are not inhibited from paying cashless.
Why is it that when I hold a stick, everyone begins to look like a pinata?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday March 13 2019, @05:47AM
Which is fine unless the shop is an effective monopoly. Then the shop is making itself (and the goods and services it monopolises) unavailable to a lot of people.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.