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?

[Happy Monkey]

If it's mentioned on the menu, then it's enforceable. To get around it, order separate checks.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

If it's mentioned on the menu, then it's enforceable. To get around it, order separate checks.

Well, the question of it's enforcability hasn't really been tested in court, so your presupposition may or may not pan out. The court will have to answer the question of whether gratuities should be enforcable. By definition, gratuity is "A favor or gift, usually in the form of money, given in return for service." "Favor" and "gift" are both voluntary. I'm interested to see how it turns out, though finding out may prove difficult since media sources rarely follow up on stories such as this.

If a customer is required to pay gratuity, it should really be called a "service charge," or something equally indicative of it's mandatory status.

[lookout123]

i was a bartender so from my experiences there i remain an over tipper. that being said, when the service or food is truly unsatisfactory i ask for the manager and explain the situation. i have found that to be the best way to take care of things, because if you just leave little or no tip they think you are just another cheap customer. if you bring a problem to their attention they will usually try to make it right.

that being said, i recently (about 3 months ago) went to a higher end seafood restaurant with my wife and some of her coworkers. my wife's lobster came out gray the first time. they obviously threw the second one on the grill to make a point. and the third one didn't come until everyone else was finished eating and we were getting ready to leave. the manager never approached us until after the waitress handed me a bill with a full charge for the lobster and i explained that i wasn't going to pay for food we never received. the asst. manager intervened and stated that we were lucky because we were only being billed for one lobster. i laughed at him and put the appropriate amount of cash for what we did receive in his hand and started to walk away. he actually yelled from across the restaurant that he was going to call the police because i was walking out on my bill. me being the even tempered guy that i am (and having a couple of beverages in me) walked back and explained to him that if i was going to get arrested it would be for something worthwhile... such as leaving him in a puddle of blood. of course, i would never do something like that but the guy's jaw hit the floor and right about that time his boss walked up, took my money out of the asst manager's hand, handed it to me along with 2 gift certificates and told me to have a better evening and "come back real soon."
then it was my turn to be completely shocked. he fired the asst manager on the spot.

other than this extremely bizarre instance, talking to the manager works better than just leaving little or no tip.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally Posted by lookout123

other than this extremely bizarre instance, talking to the manager works better than just leaving little or no tip.

Good point... not to mention an entertaining story. Myself, I rarely resort to undertipping for poor service. In point of fact, I can't remember even one instance of undertipping, though I may have just forgotten. I have never had such apalling service that I deemed it necessary. When service is poor, I just tip the minimum 15%.

It's more of the principle of the thing... if I were to be subjected to abrasive, disagreeable service, I'd like to know that I'm not legally obligated to pay the full gratuity. The word "gratuity" shares it's root with "gratitude," so it logically follows that the gratuity should parallel the customer's gratitude for service rendered.

In my own restauranting, on the few occasions where the service has been notably lacking, I have informed the managers of the problems, to varying success. Sadly, most of the time the response is something as rewarding as "sorry for the inconvenience." I think they just get too much noise from whiny customers to discern the legitimate complaints.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by hot_pastrami

Well, the question of it's enforcability hasn't really been tested in court, so your presupposition may or may not pan out. ... If a customer is required to pay gratuity, it should really be called a "service charge," or something equally indicative of it's mandatory status.

True. It would depend on how it is phrased on the menu. If the word "mandatory" is mentioned, bad for the customer; if the phrase "for your convenience" is mentioned, bad for the restaurant. If both, bad for the menu author.

[Clodfobble]

With people jumping the obviously sinking ship that was my previous employer, we ended up having large group "goodbye lunches" almost every week for the last few months. At several restaurants, the waitstaff did something interesting: there were always several credit cards, sometimes up to 15 or more. So people would just write down on a slip of paper how much they wanted their card to be charged, and added it to the stack. When the receipts came back, they would have been automatically split into "dollar amount" and "tip amount"--that is, if I wrote down $12 next to my name, my card receipt would actually show $10.68, and then $1.32 pre-printed on the tip line. (Or something close, I'm too lazy to do the math right now.) It's only just now occurred to me that maybe they did this to account for the "required" gratuity in their paperwork.

[richlevy]

I was a little confused by the story. Didn't they put the charge on the bill? If not, then the defense that the customers didn't see the notice would hold up. Add in the fact that some people just can't do math.

We would sometimes have work lunches at a local restaurant. We always made it a point to leave %18-20. After this had gone on a few times, I noticed an odd itemized charge marked 'E.P.T' or something like that. I finally figured out that this was the gratuity already added to the bill. We had been tipping over %36.

BTW, if restaurants can charge 'theft of services' for not being adequately tipped, then they should be liable for fraud if they charge for poor service.

[Cyber Wolf]

Originally Posted by richlevy

BTW, if restaurants can charge 'theft of services' for not being adequately tipped, then they should be liable for fraud if they charge for poor service.

Or any company you exchange money for goods/services with that advertises friendly service and you end up with the Surly Employee of the Day. Frivolous suits...but they fit.

[Joe Faux]

A few years ago we went to Planet Hollywood with a group of friends (6). The food and service were fine and when the bill arrived, a 18% auto-gratuity was applied. In addition, a blank tip line rested just above the final total line. I drew a line through the blank line, believing it already totaled, and signed the bill. The waitress saw the blank tip line and blew her stack. The manger came to the table and asked if anything was wrong and why I was failing to leave the waitress a tip. I explained that I believed the auto-gratuity covered my gratitude as tip. He stated the 18% was for the restaurant and the secondary tip was for the waitress. The bill before the auto-gratuity was over $120.

I was dumbfounded.

I understand that people in the service industry are paid terribly at times, but we now consider tipping our responsibility. It's no longer considered a gift but an obligation to subsidize the wage shortcomings of the restaurant owners.

I tip when its earned as a personal gift of gratitude... not because I should cover the restaurant's poor salary plan.

[Cyber Wolf]

The 18% was a tip for the restaurant itself?? That's the first time I've ever heard of that. I always thought that 18% went into a Tip Pool of some sort and was distributed among the waitstaff. Bollocks to that. That sounds a bit like racketeering to me, if they're going to apply an automatic 18% tip on your total just for having a high total. That doesn't give the customer any choice.

[russotto]

An arrest for "theft of services" for undertipping indicates the cops are dirty and in cahoots with the restauranteur.

[wolf]

One of my coworkers got charged extra by a restaurant ... which claims that the charge was "automatically added" by VISA, not by the restaurant. She had used a VISA check card to pay for a meal, and $25 surcharge of some variety or another was added onto the card. She HAD signed for a decent tip amount, incidentally. She keeps on top of the bank balance (consequent to a husband who makes ATM withdrawals without providing her the receipts) and saw the different amount and immediately contacted the restaurant. They checked the receipts for the evening and confirmed that the card was put through for the amount shown on the receipt she had in hand. The restaurant owner told her that it was VISA that initiated the additional charges.

Sounds fishy to me.

[OnyxCougar]

It *is* fishy. I worked for a credit card company, and VISA as a company does not charge customers for ANYTHING. The issuer of the card (Citibank/BofA/Household/whoever) may have applied a charge, but she can dispute that IN WRITING with them if they failed to disclose that fee.

[Ernestine]

I hate the whole culture of tipping. Why should any employee's wages be dependent upon the kindness of strangers?

I've worked as a waitress, a bank teller, a store clerk, a supermarket cashier and several other service positions. I always tried to give good service in spite of low wages, yet I was only given tips in one of these positions. Why?

I think tipping is a hold over from an old world aristocracy /servant class culture. It survives because restaurant owners like having the customer pay his employees for him, as well as paying for his goods, and the customers don't want to seem cheap. What other business owners get away with this? We don't go to Pennys, buy a shirt and then give the clerk 18% of the cost to pay his wage. I think it's time to phase it out.