The restaurants that are doing this aren’t the only places to get food, so those who don’ have credit or debit cards can eat elsewhere.
I feel like I’d be more on board with developing some sort of universal, “public option” debit card system–maybe it just takes direct deposit and puts it on a card, no possibility of overdraft.
Absolutely! Cash customers can eat somewhere seperate, but equal.
Well, of course other restaurants are separate. What else could they be? Are they equal? Of course not. Is Gray’s Papaya equal to Peter Luger Steak House? Do you expect them to be?
Next are you going to complain that Costco requires you to pay them money for the right to shop there?
Intent matters, but effect can vary as well. If a store stopped accepting cash in my neighborhood, I would think nothing of it. There might be intent, but likely no effect. If a store stopped accepting cash in a low income neighborhood, I would think that store just wants to go out of business. There might be an effect, but likely no intent.
My eyebrows would only really go up if this happened in a gentrifying or transitioning neighborhood. That’s where the intent and effect might go hand in hand.
Sorry, it just seemed you were setting someone up for a “seperate but equal” spike.
Honestly, I have nothing against discrimination. We all do it every day. My business does zero billing, effectively discriminating based on ability to pay. My business also discriminates based on age, refusing to do business with those unable to enter into legal agreements by being under 18.
If there is significant demand for cash acceptance, businesses will accept cash, maybe charging more for that luxury.
Besides you just know that next thing, you’ll have people going to their legislators to argue how dare you penalize the unbanked poor by charging them more, and demand totally equal treatment for cash.
You used to have higher prices for credit purchases because businesses would try to recover their transaction fees. Then public opinion pressured for pricing equality. It would happen again.
I just want the information clearly displayed on the front of the store so I don’t waste my time shopping only to discover that I can’t pay for what I want because the store decided that “cash only” on the door was adequate.
TBH, I don’t remember shopping anywhere that didn’t accept cash. Services such as DMV, yes, but retail, no.
I can see the attraction. Armed robbers won’t go to a store that has no cash.
ISTM that cash is, or was “legal tender for all debts, public or private”
That legal tender clause doesn’t apply in such cases, since no debt is incurred until they prepare and serve the food to you.
Exactly. I think most people just don’t know what discrimination means. The answer to the OP’s question is Yes, by definition. That’s a different question from whether refusing to accept cash is illegal discrimination, to which the answer is No, except in Philadelphia. But any business which charges a price for anything is discriminating against people who are unable to pay that price.
I own 3 stores, they all have pretty much an even split of cash/card.
One store in particular is in an impoverished area and I have seriously considered going all card. Not a week goes by where there is some amount of money missing, or having an occasional counterfeit get accepted by my…competent…staff.
The other two have no issues at all with that, so it should really be left to the business owners discretion.
Bolding added. Do you all just use that word so much that you forget what it means?
I take a different view (apart from the obvious ones). If you are an adult without a checking account society should be helping you get a checking account instead of making the vast majority of the rest of society cater to you because you don’t have a checking account.
In my criminal defense practice when I get a client accused of selling controlled substances, I usually get a first good indication if they are guilty or not. If they are not guilty, they typically pay with check. If they are guilty, they pay with a wad of cash, typically $20 denominations and smaller.
It makes no logical sense to carry cash in today’s society unless you are up to something nefarious. Cash can be stolen; it can be lost. If someone steals my wallet, I can cancel my cards and get replacements. Cash is forever gone.
In addition, cash really fuels the underground economy. People who owe back child support or tax obligations don’t open or put money into banks for that reason. Businesses (not me!) evade income tax obligations by accepting cash and underreporting income.
Further, society has to progress at some point. I’m sure that when businesses stopped providing watering troughs for horses because more people were using cars it had an impact on poor people who could not afford cars, but the response is not to keep watering troughs in perpetuity or mandate that businesses provide them.
Also, is this a real issue? Only the smallest and most boutique sort of places are not accepting cash.
The airlines have been doing this for years. They will not accept cash, only cards for all food & drinks bought on board.
Actually, in the next counties east of here the Walmarts do, in fact, have watering troughs for horses. Also shelters for them. They have enough Amish customers to warrant providing a separate parking area for horse-and-buggies and basic shelter/water for the horses.
But, 'tis true, none of that is mandated. Those stores (and others in that area) find that providing such amenities improves their bottom line.
The store I work for still gets 1/3 of its business in cash - we can’t afford to leave that much of our business out in the cold. (And I refuse to believe, contrary to what UltraVires asserts, that ALL of that 1/3 “are up to something nefarious”)
But at some point it’s going to be a matter of either EVERYONE has genuine access to banking services (which is not the case in the US today) or you’ll have to ban “no cash” business to keep from creating a shut-out underclass.
My checking account has no minimum balance, no fees, no requirements at all. So I don’t see the issue.
But I dispute your point, unless you are not being so literal (but you did capitalize “everyone”). Do all advancements in technology require absolutely universal ability to participate or no advancement at all? I cannot see how we would not still be hunters and gatherers if this principle was applied historically.
The fact that you have a bank that offers this is awesome, but the impression I have is that there are many banks with which that is not the case.
Estimates I’ve read indicate that 6 to 8% of U.S. adults are “unbanked” (that is, do not have any sort of bank account), and the biggest reason for this is not having enough cash to open a bank account, or to keep a minimum balance in an account (or may be living paycheck to paycheck, and running out of cash entirely near the end of each pay period, which would lead to being regularly overdrawn if they had a bank account). This suggests to me that there are still many banks which don’t offer that sort of “no requirements” account.
There’s an even bigger percentage of Americans who are “underbanked” – they have a bank account, but are still also users of services like payday loans and check-cashing stores.
Sources:
Stores refusing to accept cash is not an advance in technology. And it’s great that where you live you were able to get a checking account with no minimum balance, no fees, no requirements at all - doesn’t mean it’s possible for everyone everywhere. There are only two ways I can get an account with no fees and no minimum balance 1) have direct deposit ( which I can only have if my employer will do it) and a couple of auto bill pays or 2) I can maybe use an online only bank which does not accept cash deposits - but only if I don’t have a Chexsystem problem.
Really - it makes no sense to carry cash unless you are up to something nefarious? How old are you and do you not know anyone over the age of 40? True, people don’t routinely walk around with a couple of hundred dollars in cash (like my grandfather did) but people have lots of reasons to walk around with smaller amounts of cash. My number one reason is for transactions between individuals* but if I go to Dunkin Donuts and I have cash on me, I’m probably going to pay in cash.
- give a kid a birthday gift or spending money, pay someone who bought tickets for a group , pay for my share of a joint gift , pay my share of a restaurant bill. Yes, I could use Venmo or Zelle or whatever- except none of my peers use those apps . Which is also why I need a bank account that I can deposit cash into.
To build on this: here’s a 2018 CNBC article which notes that in recent years, banks have been increasingly placing those sorts of requirements on checking accounts to avoid fees – direct deposit, minimum balance, etc. The article quotes Bankrate data, showing that only 38% of banks offer a standalone free checking product.
There are other options for no-fee checking, obviously (credit unions, some online-only banks), but again, that requires knowledge and access.
Yes but there is nothing stopping your friends from getting these apps as well. If cash were made illegal (with say a 5 year warning period) you could adapt to the new cashless methods and it would for most people create hardly the slightest inconvenience. Heck, the real delay with going to cashless is you have to convert all those old vending machines, etc.
But purveyers of illicit transactions would be inconvenienced. Presently there’s cryptocurrency but the government could ban the exchanges for crypto, essentially making it useless. (people holding crypto already could use it still but the value would plummet to almost nothing)
I am aware that with a democratic government it would take a very long time for this to ever happen, if it ever did. But a cashless society would make many forms of crime difficult to commit.