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Editorial: Is not tipping a crime?

Abstract:
Two local college students were recently transported to the Bethlehem police headquarters after failing to pay a mandatory tip at the Lehigh Pub. Was the bad publicity worth the $16 tip that would have been lost?...

  • Displaying 1 - 16 of 16

ELEANO

posted 11/19/09 @ 3:34 PM EST

nobody deserve to be tip
tip is at discretion
T.I.P.S. TO INSURE PROPER SERVICE
SERVICE FEE IS NON DISCUSSIBLE
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Meg

posted 11/19/09 @ 5:14 PM EST

Originally posted by

ELEANO

 nobody deserve to be tip
tip is at discretion
T.I.P.S. TO INSURE PROPER SERVICE
SERVICE FEE IS NON DISCUSSIBLE


That's totally not what "tips" stands for. If it was, it would be "teps" since you should be using "ensure," not "insure".

Don't believe urban legends.
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ss

posted 11/19/09 @ 4:00 PM EST

The last sentence really sums it up: "Was the bad publicity worth the $16 tip that would have been lost?"

That's exactly what the pub staff should have asked themselves. Crazy.
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FREETHELEHIGH2

posted 11/19/09 @ 5:26 PM EST

THere should be a rally/protest outside the restaurant!
People shouldn't tolerate this! Charges need to be dropped and apologies to the victims here. The restaurant/waitress is not the victim here.

If it was mandatory why not just price things into the menu items and pay the waiters/waitress a decent wage? A larger group orders more there fore there is more money available to pay the wage. The idea of the tip to begin with is to give incentive to the staff to give good service. Something is warped in this place.
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Danny

posted 11/19/09 @ 5:42 PM EST

If Mr. Opinion had actually read the whole story, he would have seen that they were part of a party of 8, and that the restaurant has a policy written on the menus that there will be a gratuity added for parties of 8 or more. They are college kids, they can count to 8, they can read.
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Mac

posted 11/19/09 @ 8:29 PM EST

Originally posted by

Danny

 If Mr. Opinion had actually read the whole story, he would have seen that they were part of a party of 8, and that the restaurant has a policy written on the menus that there will be a gratuity added for parties of 8 or more. They are college kids, they can count to 8, they can read.
Who cares how many are in the party. That is just an out for waiters/waitresses to ignore their customers. "Why should I bust my ass to satisfy their needs when I am guaranteed a tip no matter what" This is a ridiculous rule, I have and never will patronize an establishment who enforces this BS policy. Customer service in this country is horrible and it needs to be pointed out. I just recently ate a well known "crab shack" and had horrible service. Refilled my own drink, never received our appetizer, the waitress huffed and walked away when I told her I was not paying for an appetizer I never received. And then when I left her a 5% percent tip she actually followed me and ask me why I didn't tip more. So I laid it out for her: This is what you have to do to receive a 15% tip from me and this is what you did, which is about 33% of what I demand when I eat out. The writer of this article is incorrect though, if a waiter is short with me? =NO TIP Just because you wait on tables does not mean you deserve a tip just for doing the minimum expected. This is causing the acceptance of mediocrity in our society.
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MK

posted 11/20/09 @ 9:26 AM EST

Originally posted by

Danny

 If Mr. Opinion had actually read the whole story, he would have seen that they were part of a party of 8, and that the restaurant has a policy written on the menus that there will be a gratuity added for parties of 8 or more. They are college kids, they can count to 8, they can read.


Except by definition, a gratuity is voluntary and in no way obligates the party to pay it. They have the right to refuse to give a tip for shoddy service. If the Pub wants to charge more for larger parties, claim a service fee.
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Russ

posted 11/23/09 @ 9:32 AM EST

Originally posted by

Danny

 If Mr. Opinion had actually read the whole story, he would have seen that they were part of a party of 8, and that the restaurant has a policy written on the menus that there will be a gratuity added for parties of 8 or more. They are college kids, they can count to 8, they can read.


I don't care if it's a party of 100. I don't believe in mandatory tipping policies. Tips are meant to insure prompt service. Tips should never be given at the beginning of a meal (as they are asked for at several buffet places, of all things, and they should never be mandatory)
My general tip is $1.00 per person at the table, irregardless of the amount of the bill. Why should I tip more for a steak than a hamburger if the waiter did the same work getting it to me?????
I hope this incident publicizes this policy enough to get rid of it around the country!
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Thomas Paine

posted 11/19/09 @ 9:33 PM EST

The choice is simple. Patronize the establishment and demonstrate that you agree with their 'arrest the customer' philosophy or stay away and let them rot (and eventually close) as they deserve.
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Bartleby the Scrivener

posted 11/19/09 @ 9:37 PM EST

The party of 8 rule is almost certainly clearly written, and despite that, the bartender was a complete tool for calling the police over this. You can call it what you will, but a part of the implied contract established when one pays for food in a restaurant is prompt and courteous service. If one does not receive that, then the contract is violated and one can quite legally refuse to pay (disclaimer: that is as per California jurisprudence and IANAL).

The restaurant's response that they had offered to comp the meal fails the test of scrutiny, because if they had, the required tip would have been nothing, as the tip is calculated as a percentage of the price of the meal.

I prefer not to eat there.

-Bartleby
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Joe

posted 11/19/09 @ 9:54 PM EST

Although the gratuity clause is mentioned in the menu agreement, it'd be nice for Lehigh pub to note their strict policy enforcement of prosectuing customers who receive poor service.

Some restaurants care about the service they give the customer. If any other (respectable) restaurant were to serve an improperly cooked meal or create an unpleasant situation, chances are that the customer would get a perk (free desert, meal, credit).

Not the Lehigh pub. Lehigh Pub calls the police and presses charges to customers they treat like crap.
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Joe

posted 11/19/09 @ 11:03 PM EST

Let me guess, the person that wrote this editorial also works as waitstaff? I have worked as a waiter and I made good tips. A waiter doing his/her job at a busy pub or resturant can make a good living off of tips. Yes, the base salary is horrible, but the tips are great...if you do your job. Release the couple and boycott the Pub.
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Diego Mamani

posted 11/20/09 @ 6:52 PM EST

OK, OK, we all have opinions about the manager, and about the couple who was arrested. My question is about the police. What do you think about the police actions? I think the cops in this case were 100% ignorant of what a gratuity is. By definition, a gratuity is voluntary. Although I tip 15% (excl tax) and I do so 99.99% of the time, I think that a patron doesn't even has to justify himself if he chooses not to tip.
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Tom

posted 11/22/09 @ 10:01 PM EST

Danny: Regardless of a restaurant's policy of 18% gratuity for parties of 8, such policy is not binding and unenforceable. It is discrimination; a restaurant cannot charge different prices to different diners. It is a violation of FtC regulation regarding advertising of prices and hidden charges; for example, a restaurant cannot have a menu listing "$2 8oz prime filet mignon" with a mandatory $48 service charge at the bottom, which is essentially the same thing.
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Todd Victor Leone

posted 3/03/10 @ 9:48 PM EST

If you order a $12.95 hamburger at a restaurant and it never gets delivered to the table, legally, they can't charge you for it. If you take a bite and it's burnt to a crisp and inedible and you send it back, they can't make you pay for it unless they replace it with one that is edible. And on the same legal principle, if they charge you 18% for service and they don't provide you with reasonable and adequate service (i.e., at least average quality of service), they can't legally charge you for that either. If a business charges you for something, they have to provide that something. If they don't, they can't make you pay for it. It's a very simple principle of law. The local police here were extremely stupid to back up the restaurant by arresting the customers. A disclaimer on the menu is beside the point. They imposed a charge for service, and they failed to provide any acceptable level of service. Kudos to the patrons for refusing to be blackmailed. I hope they make a lot of money when they sue the restaurant and the police. The charges were dropped, by the way, because the local D.A.'s office immediately realized no crime had been committed.
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Dick

posted 3/04/10 @ 12:22 PM EST

If they paid the waiters a fair base wage, tipping would be not necessary. The fact that the server went through the motions does not justify a tip to fill in the monetary gap from the base wage. Since the patron is essentially paying the server's salary directly with thetip we should have control over how much or how little they deserveI wonder if the management of the Lehigh Pub mitigated the problems and whether this server is still working there. In any event I will not patronize the Lehigh Pub untill new management or a public apology is issued.
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