New Bill in NYC Proposed to Ban Cashless Restaurants [Grub Street]

I think the issue is tougher than a lot of people are acknowledging.
I see you are careful to not necessarily agree that there is a problem. But let’s assume that there is an inherent disadvantage to lacking a credit card.
Certainly, one solution is to create a federal or state system that administers a card program for qualifying individuals. But I think you’d see that there is a burden there that would be borne by the state and creating that program is politically fraught.
Another solution is to bar the practice. Then individual business owners are bearing the burden.
I know which solution I would choose, but we have to acknowledge that both solutions carry costs both financial and political.

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Requiring all businesses to take cash would create major real expenses for some people in exchange for benefits that are mostly if not entirely theoretical. Welcome to Berkeley.

I’m not sure there’s any disadvantage to not having a credit card. There are definitely disadvantages to having neither a credit nor debit card.

As I noted, the federal government already has a debit card program.

What about places that ONLY take cash. I find this more hassle/costly. The taco shop in my neighborhood only takes cash - and this isn’t a small truck it’s a bustling place with three branches and a 5-Star rewards machine. Usually I realize after I have ordered that I don’t have enough cash and have to run next door and pay the $3 fee to take out some cash.

Not in exchange for benefits. The theory is that the monetary costs are borne so that a certain group of people don’t suffer a societal cost. Which is kind of how all government works, for better or worse. One of the functions of government is that it enforces certain practices, as codified by law, to help ensure that some people aren’t suffering an unintended cost, even when those practices create a burden for some individuals to bear. Not all costs, of course. Just ones that society/legislators deem unacceptable or unconstitutional.
I mean, you’re offering a solution, so I am just assuming that you realize that there exists a likely cost that is borne by those who are unable to procure a credit card of some type. They lose access to certain private sector services. They lose more and more access as more and more businesses move to a cashless system.
So who is responsible for bearing the costs of not unintentionally discriminating against people unable to secure credit? If you want the federal government to guarantee a credit-linked debit card, you claim it is the federal government that should bear the cost. If you say businesses should be prevented from adopting a pay-model that unintentionally discriminates, then you say it’s the businesses themselves.
This kind of dispute is at the heart of the political divide in the US.

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I respectfully disagree. I do not think that a business practice’s impact, absent any malintent, is enough to qualify that business practice as “racist.”

For example, take the price of goods or services. If the price is high, it will have an “unintended differential impact” on people’s relative ability to afford it. High pricing is the same issue as not accepting cash: a financial barrier to accessing a good or service. Here, we’re discussing how apparent financial barriers disproportionately affect different people groups. But if the business practice is to charge what the market will bear, and the market enables businesses to charge high prices for certain things, how is that then “insidious racism?”

Are expensive floor seats to a concert or ball game unwittingly racist? How about expensive ingredients, nice restaurants, sports cars, or fancy hotels?

Which ties in to another another example, which I mentioned earlier: are all hotels which require a credit card also racist, for the same reason that requiring a credit card may have a differential impact on certain populations’ ability to stay there? Rental car services, too?

(I am generally uncomfortable correlating race with financial access, as undoubtedly there will be members of all different races who can or cannot access things for various reasons, but the issue we’re talking about here and specifically the article linked are operating under the premise that we can talk in terms of race).

To clarify, what I said was

(emphasis added) . I think bad motivations may exist in adopting a cashless system, but if there are logical, legitimate, and purely business reasons why a business would favor cashless, why not give benefit of the doubt instead of classifying all such businesses as perpetrators of racism?

Sorry, I don’t mean to come off as a smart-ass, and I realize that these political issues are complex. Perhaps it’s just semantics, but it’s challenging for me to understand the imputation of insidious racism here because 1) it’s such a strong charge, 2) I think that racism by definition requires intent, and 3) many businesses stand to be affected by this proposal.

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While high prices and not accepting cash may present the same outcome for some folk, the two situations are not technically the same thing. In one case, the individual is capable of paying a price set by a business and in the other the individual is not. It’s an apples to oranges comparison.

Renting hotel rooms or cars is, unfortunately, another apples to oranges comparison since the customer is in temporary custody of something that is of such high value that the business may legally ask it to be secured in some way, hence the credit card. This is a different business type all together than, say, a burger stand.

I’m baffled by the position that racism, by definition, needs to be intended. I disagree and I haven’t come across any scholar on the subject that claims intent is required for racism to occur. I have encountered numerous writings supporting the opposite position. I’m curious what makes you state that, but I think this is at the heart of why you and I see this issue so differently. Most of your response is addressing the lack of intent somehow shielding the business from the blame of impact. I’m not persuaded a lack of intent can do that. Like homicide, there are different degrees of racism and intent may or may not be present.

I totally agree that the conflation of low income and race is uncomfortable and potentially dangerous. I think we both were taking the lead of the article and opinions of other writers and kind of ran with it.

And let me say I had and have no intention of calling you out or being adversarial. I don’t read your comments as snarky or smart-assed at all. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. But I do think the issue is fairly complex and will be of greater and greater importance as more businesses adopt a cashless model.

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@frommtron & @BradFord

Thank you for providing an intelligent & polite discussion on the issues surrounding this topic.
It has caused me to think carefully about the societal impact of businesses going cashless–a decision that probably does not have a significant direct impact on me.

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Who precisely is being discriminated against in a meaningful way by a business not accepting cash for a $5 taco?

If we’re going to impose real costs on a fairly large group of business owners, lets see some genuine benefits to the alleged victims. Maybe impose a tax on going cashless and use that money to treat poor people a little less like garbage.

Famished stoners who just rifled through seat cushions in the sofa or the car for some change to grab a taco, for starters…

As tongue-in-cheek as that sounds, it is a very real scenario, and a huge possible source of business for taco stands.

Thanks for your careful thoughts about this and for keeping it civil! I didn’t feel like you were singling me out at all, just wanted to preface that since I had a string of questions in a row which can be sometimes interpreted as me being a smart ass.

I’ll respond tonight after work with my thoughts on each of your points in turn.

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Somebody who’s rummaging around in the car for change to pay for a taco is probably going to a truck where it costs $2, not a cashless place in a hipster neighborhood where they’d have to pay to park.

But I thought we were talking about an entirely cashless world, where even the $1 taco requires a card for purchase…

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I think that’s a distinction without a difference. The issue we’re discussing is a business practice that results in financial impediment for some portions of the community. If one if priced out, how is that really different than not being able to pay by the means one may have (cash and not card)? If the issue is capability, it depends on how relatively expensive something is. Let’s say that the person who can’t access a credit card also happens to be completely priced out of ____ good; don’t the business pricing its good at that out-of-reach price and the business not accepting card pose the same financial barrier to the individual?

I used pricing as an example of a business practice that I think we can agree is not insidiously racist, even if it has the same effect as not accepting cash.

The bottom line requirement for a credit card is the same financial barrier as the one theorized with restaurants, but it’s OK with hotels or cars because there’s a sufficient business interest (having a secured something of high value) to justify that policy. So, we’re acknowledging the principle that some business interests can justify an unintended differential impact. It’s a question then of facts and circumstances, whether if on balance a business has adequate reasons to allow their practice which incidentally disproportionately impact some part of the population.

Which brings me to discuss the larger issue, which is the heart of the matter, as you identified.

We are discussing alleged racism in the context of business practices. I agree that there are forms of unintentional racism that may exist among individuals, like some implicit biases (but that is not the issue we’re debating).

When dealing with business practices, I’m convinced by the logic of “disparate impact” claims under Title VII. While Title VII is not necessarily instructive for this particular issue of restaurants and cashless systems, I find the reasoning in general pretty compelling. As I understand it, under Title VII, a business may or may not be liable for a practice which a claimant establishes has a disproportionate, adverse affect on members of a protected group. That is, courts may infer illegal discrimination from a practice even if the practice is revealed to be discriminatory not on its face but rather through its impact.

However, the disparate impact alone and the ensuing “inference of discrimination” is not enough. It’s possible for a business to rebut that alleged discrimination by proving a legitimate business justification. If there aren’t other, less burdensome options that meet these business interests as effectively, then the business may avoid liability despite the disparate impact of their policy.

My understanding of this law isn’t perfect, and I’m not saying Title VII is the law at issue here. But, I find the logic reasonable. A business policy may have a disproportionate adverse impact on a certain part of the population, if other, legitimate interests exist and the policy is tailored towards that. If we can do achieve those in a way that’s less burdensome to populations, then ok let’s find that.

In other words, intent does matter when we’re talking about liability in this context. Making that analogy to our issue at hand, I’m hesitant to say that a business practice is borne out of insidious racism if there are legitimate business justifications for that policy such that there was no intent to exclude a certain group. I think there are several such interests for cashless systems, like those previously mentioned in the thread - curbing theft and robberies, and lowering expenses. I think we need to find intent of discrimination before making a cashless system illegal and punishable by fine.

I’m open to hearing your further thoughts on this matter, and in any event, am glad we can discuss it civilly (as I know that these types of issues can have a certain energy to them at times).

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There are many real problems that poor people in New York City face every day. Even accepting for the sake of argument that not being able to pay cash for things they can’t afford anyway is one of them, it’s about as low a priority as can be.

This ambitious politician latched on to this issue because it sounds righteous, costs the city nothing, and he calculates that the damage it does to owners of low-margin cashless businesses will cost him little or nothing politically with his “progressive” base. (And I say that as a democratic socialist who lives in Berkeley.)

No, not at all. The proposal is to ban cashless businesses in NYC. The status quo is that businesses are free to take only cash, only cards, or both.

There are serious practical and political obstacles to transitioning to a cashless world, which seems like a bad idea to me. I can’t recall reading a good argument for that.

If my recent visit to Beijing is representative, China has already transitioned to cashless.

Restaurant, supermarket, taxi, anyone that needs to get paid, are paid by phone via Alipay or WeChat. Cashiers were slightly confused and taken aback when we paid with cash. We’re talking street stands and hole in wall 5 table stalls.

Even the street beggars accept phone payments. Would not have believed if I didn’t see for myself.

Many stores in the USA that have a Mainland Chinese customer base mostly accept Alipay or WeChat pay. Noticed this last year at the outlet mall in Vacaville.

Many parts of the world, especially countries with inadequate banking infrastructure rely heavily on mobile banking.

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100% cashless is great for totalitarian governments, which is the primary reason I think it’s a dangerous idea. Conceivably Estonian-style blockchain could make it compatible with a free, open society, but Estonia’s economy is still largely cash-based.

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Agree on this. It’s more about government control of the citizenry than perceived convenience by the people. Cash offers anonymity. To hell with the police state.

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I just would like to say that this is the most interesting and informative thread I’ve seen on any food site. Thanks all.

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More of the same in that CNN piece.

Anyone can buy a MasterCard or Visa gift card with cash at a supermarket or drug store.