Restaurant customer arrested for crime of undertipping

[hot_pastrami]

From the article:

A New York City man accused of leaving an inadequate tip at a restaurant was arrested, fingerprinted and photographed for a mug shot.

Humberto A. Taveras, 41, faces a misdemeanor charge of theft of services after he and his fellow diners argued with Soprano's Italian and American Grill managers over the legality of requiring an 18 percent tip for large parties.

"They chased us down like a bunch of criminals," Taveras said. "It killed our weekend."

Taveras and eight others had pizza at the restaurant in this resort village Sunday night. He told the Glens Falls Post-Star they weren't completely satisfied with the food and left a tip of under 10 percent. Taveras said they also were not told of a mandatory 18 percent gratuity for parties of six or more and did not see notice of it on their menus.

This raises interesting questions.... are gratuities, even when automatically added to the the bill, enforceable? I consider the gratuity to be my means of providing feedback to the food establishment, and I tend to over-tip as a habit. But when I recieve blatantly shitty service and/or shitty food, I'm going to tip less. I'd be furious if I was treated badly but still legally bound to tip as much as the restaurant asked, especially at 18%.

I know that a lot of (ex-)waiters/waitresses will pipe up and convey their deep-seeded resentment for difficult customers, under-tippers, and the like. But are those problems serious enough to legally bind the rest of the country to a certain gratuity amount, even when the service is bad? If tipping isn't optional, why isn't that extra money just added to the food prices, and we can discard the whole notion of tipping?