Posted on 08/07/2014 2:04:19 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A small cafe in Stillwater has thrown itself into the big battle over Minnesota’s minimum wage increases, inundating the cafe with dozens of phone calls and online comments this week after it tacked on a 35-cent fee to meal tabs.
Oasis Cafe owner Craig Beemer said the fee is needed to offset the 75-cent wage hike that took effect Aug. 1, the first time Minnesota’s minimum wage has increased in a decade. Even with only half a dozen servers, Beemer says it will cost him $10,000 more a year to pay servers $8 an hour instead of the federal rate of $7.25 an hour. Instead of adding it on to food prices, he added the “minimum wage fee” — the only restaurant known to do so in Minnesota so far.
It’s set off a firestorm of debate on Facebook and in the east metro community, with one customer calling the cafe Wednesday to demand a refund and others taking to Facebook to encourage people to boycott the roadside cafe.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Actions have consequences. If the law demands I must raise wage levels, then consumers must know that prices will also increase.
FTA.....
Despite online boycott threats, business has actually increased so far this week, Orcutt said.
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Heh heh heh.
I think it’s a good idea. Let the customers know why the prices have risen, rather than having them vaguely blame inflation or the greedy restaurant owners.
There’s a better way, IMHO: call it “Directive 10-289 Tax”, and 99% of the LIVs will never get it. If they ask, he can just say “it’s a local sales tax.”
and they still want a Tip ?
This is awesome. Prices are a communique’ and I like what is being said here.
On another site there was a comment:
If they can’t afford to pay their employees, they shouldn’t be in business.
Still scratching my head on that one.
Is there anything Liberals can't make worse?
It was a very bad idea.
Back in 2006, the Minnesota Legislature (including the GOP-controlled House) passed a bill that pretty much gave away the farm so that an all-new pro baseball stadium could be built here.
Worse yet, the Legislature made Hennepin County (the most populous county in the state) pay for all of it and refused to lwet county voters hold a referendum as to whether they wished to be taxed for it.
Bachman’s a major floral retailer in Minnesota, set it up so that on everyone’s receipt was a line showing how much they had just “contributed” to the Twins stadium fund.
I saw nothing wrong with it then and I see nothing wrong with what this restaurant did. People need to get an upfront slap in the face sometimes so that they can really see the consequences of votes made by their elected officials.
Headscratcher for sure. But it reminds one of Hillary Clinton’s malevolent statement 20 years ago, that businesses that couldn’t afford to pay for health insurance also don’t deserve to exist. In the minds of malevolent “progressives,” if you can’t do what they want, you don’t deserve to exist.
So if people boycott the restaurant and it goes out of business, how does this help the out-of-work employees get the new minimum wage?
The thing about liberals is that they want to be able to tell others how to spend money, but they don't want someone telling them how to spend their own.
No it wasn’t.
I had an estimate done to have a tree removed two years ago (I didn’t have the cash in full at the time). Save “that” amount up and had the guy back out. The price doubled and he had no problems telling me why: The cost of healthcare for his employee’s went way up, epa regulations covering how he had to handle the downed tree after it was felled, the Governor raising the state gas tax and the fact business is slow because people right now don’t see a need for major landscaping. His words? “Sorry, I’m not in this as a courtesy to anyone, I still have to pay my bills.”.
I applaud this business owner.
Boycott a place for discussing what you (min. wage advocates) wanted??? Okay...
Maybe a good idea, but it reminds me of something. I don’t know about other states, but here in New York, it is illegal for gas stations to advertise how much of the price of a gallon of gas is state and federal taxes. What, are they embarrassed?
Why is he paying servers even $7.25 an hour? The federal minimum wage for tipped servers is still $2.13 an hour. If state law requires $8 an hour for tipped employees then you’ll see restaurants go self serve or out of business.
Stupid liberals.
“and they still want a Tip ?”
Opponents of the fee might fear that customers will calculate a tip, then deduct the “fee” from the tip, thus negating the wage increase for the servers.
Depending on local labour market conditions, the cafe might have a hard time retaining its best workers, if they take a hit on their tips. If the prices were just raised, without breaking out the “fee”, then the servers would get a tip based on the new, higher prices. Everything else being equal, the best workers would gravitate to the places where they could take home the most.
Agreed, artificially raising the lowest wage tier by over 10% is always a bad idea ...
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