Posted on 05/06/2018 9:02:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There’s been yet another development in the Fight for Fifteen, this time coming to us from the Big Apple. With great fanfare, the Democrats in New York City (and in the state government as well) have been trying to outdo each other this election cycle by jacking up the minimum wage. Recent legislative moves brought the city to the point where they’ve had six minimum wage increases in two years. As you might imagine, this has been particularly tough on the restaurant and bar business. The city is quickly making some eateries essentially unprofitable unless they increase their menu prices to the point where they will likely just drive away customers anyway.
This has Heartland Brewery CEO Jon Bloostein raising the alarm to anyone who will listen. He’s describing the overall effect on his business as that of a “bomb dropping on the city.” And to say that in New York you’ve got to be pretty serious. (Fox Business News)
“I’m taking it personally now,” Bloostein told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.” on Friday.
He said restaurant owners “can’t absorb” six minimum-wage increases in a three-year period.
“A bomb fell on the city in 2015,” he said. “I think Albany thinks because it’s New York City we can just add menu prices as high as we want – doesn’t work.”
In response, New York City restaurant owners are pushing for lawmakers to allow them to add a 5% surcharge to offset the cost and help prevent rising prices on the menus, Bloostein said.
Bloostein isn’t objecting to the idea of an increased minimum wage. He just needs the increases to stay somewhere close to other costs and not completely tank his business model. At this point, he’s not even lobbying to have the increased wage scaled back. He’s asking that merchants be allowed to add a 5% city surcharge onto the bill so they can make back some of the losses without having to increase their menu prices, likely scaring more customers off.
Unfortunately, due to New York City’s oppressive nanny state rules, he can’t even do that without getting the permission of City Hall. Needless to say, Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t in any hurry to hear his case or make such a call, so Bloostein is going to the press.
What the Mayor is probably trying to avoid is a situation similar to what happened in Seattle after their massive soda tax went into effect. Remember when Costco put these signs on cases of Gatorade to show just how much the city was costing consumers?
ARE YOU KIDDING?!?! Check out these prices at Costco now that the Soda and #SugarTax has taken affect in the Seattle area. 1.75 cents per fluid ounce. Pics @DevinSenaUI & @HaydenBedsole pic.twitter.com/RcsPY4e8L4
— Tim Williams (@realtimwilliams) January 6, 2018
Allowing restaurants to put such a surcharge on their customers’ bills would be a reminder of exactly who raised the menu prices and what the money was going toward. Even as overwhelmingly liberal as the city is, sooner or later the government is going to price them out of existence and just possibly convince New Yorkers to take a look at some other candidates when they go to the polls. But de Blasio just won another term in office handily, so it’s hard to be too sympathetic to diners facing higher prices when they go out to dinner. You keep voting these people back into office and you really do get what you deserve.
People who live in NYC flat out deserve this.
Considering that they've been exporting Marxism via their elected representatives for as long as I can remember, they deserve a lot worse than this.
Why do you hate Donald J. Trump and his family?
I wonder how mister Bloostein voted in the last several elections,gee.
The city is quickly making some eateries essentially unprofitable unless they increase their menu prices to the point where they will likely just drive away customers anyway.
And the voters of NY get to sit down to their banquet of consequences.
Upstate is screwed as well. And we didn’t vote for this. We’re getting the hikes, just not as much as fast. Small restaurants are dropping like flies. Chains charge too much. We’re just eating out way less. Saving us a ton of money, but God help folks who need/want a job in the restaurant biz.
I live in New York and I can attest that, as an example, a bacon, double-egg and cheese breakfast sandwich around here has gone from around $3.00-3.50 to $4.00-5.00 in the past 2-3 years.
And I might add the quality of bacon has decreased, are more often than not you only get 1 slice of cheese instead of 2. The same 20-50% increase in price/ decrease in quantity and/ or quality of ingredients is evident in the prepared meals/ sandwiches everywhere here.
Let’s just say I don’t get food out anywhere near as often as I used to/ would have.
New York: Land of taxes
Yeah, New York was one of the reasons fast food joints, at least in New York, so not have a “dollar menu” anymore. They have been replaced with “value menus” where something that the same restaurant will charge $1.00 for in Ohio costs is $1.50-2.00 here.
Doesn’t affect the rich liberals at all. Either in paying $10.00 for a $7.00 Chipotle bowl, or having their kid fired, or their wife moved from full time to part-time, as the business owner tries to absorb some of the labor costs.
I recently ate out with some friends. Dinners which were like $16-18 last year were now in the mid-high twenties. I will not be eating out there again, nor at many other restaurants. Perhaps I will have my occasional slice of pizza, but that’s about it. It is not my responsibility to personally subsidize illegals working at restaurants.
He must think his customers are not very smart.
New York City restaurant owners are pushing for lawmakers to allow them to add a 5% surcharge to offset the cost and help prevent rising prices on the menus
Why would they need “permission” to charge a fee to recoup what government has forced upon them??
Next Week I am Adding a $10 Schwarzenegger Tax to every invoice I write. I am going to tell them it is for the Increased Fuel Prices Arnold gave us with his Cap and Fraud bill.
How about allowing a 100% surcharge so the menu prices in New York can be less than the rest of the country? Labor is a price of doing business - just raise the menu price rather than trying to sneak it in.
All those foodies can’t be happy. What will they take pictures of now? Social media postings decrease commensurately...
Why do you hate Donald J. Trump and his family?
You're going Alinsky by personalizing it. He means New Yorkers in general, who put the Marxists in office, not particular individual New Yorkers.
BTW, the Trump family can afford pretty much anything that comes down the pike. Yet they push for policies that benefit all.
““I think Albany thinks because it’s New York City we can just add menu prices as high as we want – doesn’t work.””
Why not? Everything else in NYC is ridiculously priced.
“Upstate is screwed as well. And we didn’t vote for this. We’re getting the hikes, just not as much as fast. Small restaurants are dropping like flies. Chains charge too much. We’re just eating out way less. Saving us a ton of money, but God help folks who need/want a job in the restaurant biz.”
I was in a McDonald’s recently, and not even in a $15 minimum wage territory. I just said, SCREW IT (regardless of my tag line) when I saw their prices, and ended up spending $1.60 for a gas station hot dog, which was damn good, by the way.
I think one difference that those on the Left don’t consider is that the REAL COMPETITION for restaurant food is not other restaurants, but rather people simply staying home and cooking. The restaurant owners know that FULL WELL, but the leftists simply think that if every restaurant is more expensive, then nothing bad happens...but the truth, of course, is that there will be many shutting down, until a new equalibrium is reached, where the Middle Class eat out much less, if at all, and the Upper Middle Class also cut back significantly.
I was in a ‘second world’ type of country. Modern place but the locals are not very well paid. One of the guys that I was with asked them if they eat out much, considering that the food there was excellent and lots of choices. The response: “Are you kidding, on our salaries?”. That’s where we are heading.
800000 people are set to leave NY. Based on high income taxes, and limitations on deductions under new tax law. $15 Hr will only add to the exodus. What scares me is the AHs leaving NY. If they come here the fools will vote for the same darn things that are causing them to leave NY. Let’s call them the, “New Illegals”.
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