In hard times New Yorkers turn to Economic Disobedience

[earth mom]

Hard times for New Yorkers means inventive ways of cutting back -- like stealing meals and subway rides!

At least that is the trend we are reading about today, as two reports of civil disobedience (or one, if you don't count flat-out stealing as something Thoreau would have condoned) are becoming trends in the city.

The New York Post says that in 2010, there was a huge increase in reports of those who bailed on a check at a restaurant.

Eating in a restaurant and leaving without paying the tab -- known in police parlance as "theft of service" -- rose almost 20 percent in the city last year, up from 315 arrests in 2009 to 376 in 2010, according to the NYPD. Of course, those numbers don't include the many scofflaws who successfully "lick and split."

More with video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/with-rising-cost-of-livin_n_807958.html

[LiberalEsto]

1. And the cost falls on the waitstaff

who make next to nothing and depend on tips to survive.
It's disgraceful to shaft people that way.

[WingDinger]

2. Give me a break. One customer steals the meal, not everyone.

[LiberalEsto]

4. Yes, but if someone makes $2 an hour plus tips

and they have to shell out $30 for the stolen meal, it can really hurt.

Have you ever been a waitperson? I have.

My daughters were waitresses in high school, and they had to give up their hard-earned money to pay for selfish scum who skipped out on paying for their meals.

[Taitertots]

9. Then the problem is that they are making $2 an hour and their employer is...

Refusing to pay the costs of doing business (dine and dash) and passing it onto their workers.

Maybe they should be pissed at the scum that are exploiting them and stealing from them to cover their expenses.

[LiberalEsto]

16. Go ahead, blame the victim

Was it my teenager's fault that she got ripped off for $20 or $30 a few times?
What is she supposed to do, lie down and go on a hunger strike until the restaurant agrees to pay her a living wage? Not likely to happen. They would just fire her and hire someone else on their applicant list.
And just how many alternative jobs do you think are available to 17-year-old young women?

Yes, the restaurant industry exploits workers. So does this whole fucked up economy. My husband works 10 to 20 unpaid hours a week beyond his regular 40, just to hang onto his IT job. If he insisted on being paid, he'd have his ass handed to him and someone here on an H1-B visa would get the job.

Individuals rarely have the ability to change rotten systems. The only way is for people to agree to work together and stick together.

Some ways to do that include not putting down the worker next to you, or ripping him/her off.

[WingDinger]

17. Yes, absolutely. They are not allowed to charge emps.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WingDinger]

23. There is an entity for reporting this to. And they will fight for you, if you have a case.

[Hannah Bell]

25. um -- google "wage theft"

[LiberalEsto]

35. And in the meantime we should just starve?

Please get real.

My daughter quit the restaurant about 6 years ago.

[Taitertots]

41. She quit the restaurant and didn't starve

The most she would have to do is something she already did without incident.

[Taitertots]

40. Blame the victim? It is clearly the owners fault

The "they will hire someone else" meme is just a line used by those in power to keep workers down. It is the calling card of those who support tyrants by refusing to stand up to injustices.


"Individuals rarely have the ability to change rotten systems."
That is only something only said by people who refuse to make the effort, bare the risk, or sacrifice which is necessary for progress. It is the calling card of those who refuse to do anything about their problems. History is filled with individuals that prove your opinion invalid. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr.,Clyde Kennard, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond, Upton Sinclair, Oliver Brown (13 people), Norma McCorvey....

[bluestate10]

45. So you are justifying one wrong action by pointing out that another action is wrong.

Sorry, that is extreme moral confusion.

[Taitertots]

46. No, I am not

No one should dine and dash. The owners shouldn't pass those costs on to the wait staff.

I am in no way justifying stealing. I am using one wrong action to shine light on numerous other greater injustices.

[dkf]

18. My brother and sister both waited on tables and I don't recall them ever

saying they had to pay for the bill. Is this SOP or restaurant by restaurant?

[frazzled]

5. The cooks and dishwashers need to get paid, too ... not to mention

the vendors who supply the restaurant: the vegetable and meat purveyors, the laundry that washes the linens, the cleaning staff who wash the floors, etc.

If you don't have enough money to eat, there are better ways to get food than stealing from a restaurant (or even from a grocery): apply for food stamps; go to a food shelf or get a free meal at one of many shelters and organizations. I don't think we should ever condone theft.

[LiberalEsto]

6. Agree 100% nt

[Scruffy1]

12. What they really need is a UNION.

[Kurovski]

14. Just thinking that very same thing. (nt)

[frazzled]

32. True, but the union can't help if the restaurant fails because of

people not paying their bills. It's as simple as that. Thou shalt not steal. (I mean, unless you're desperate. But as I said, you don't need to sit down to a meal at a restaurant to find food when you are desperate. There are other choices.)

[Lars39]

48. No it doesn't, it's a business tax write-off.

[bluestateguy]

3. I know someone who says he now only tips 5% at restaurants

His view is that cutbacks have to be made and the tip is where he will cut until the restaurants lower the prices of the meal.

I do not share this view.

[immoderate]

11. .

First, he would have to eat alone. And second, he can't be frequenting those places. :)

--imm

[Kurovski]

15. brown-bagging is the real savings.

that person is stealing.

Let him try to run off with free gas (until they lower those prices.)

[dkf]

20. Paying a 5% tip is stealing?

So if you get bad service and don't tip aren't you also stealing?

[Kurovski]

28. No. But the man's plan is to steal 15% of the bill. Unless he asks for the worst server on shift.

It's a heist, malice aforethought. :D

And if he's serious about saving money, a 'sammich from home will save hundreds in a year.

Edit: Very few dining experiences are made so awful by wait staff that you have to stiff them, but that's ones choice.

[dkf]

38. I never do. I tip the 20% for good or bad service.

Never left 0 in my life. Even the wrong order that got replaced with a burnt pizza that took ages. Actually we probably got ripped off there.

[Kurovski]

43. I'm proud of you, or something akin to that.

:-) I don't think 0 is good either. If regular folks have a bad day at work, their boss doesn't stiff them. Of course, mess up enough and it's au revoir, garcon.

[Stevenmarc]

19. Someone you know is a douchebag

You need to inform someone that there is this thing in their apartment called a kitchen and they should learn how to use it until they can fully afford the restaurant experience.

[enough]

31. +++ A decent tip (except in case of bad service where the wait staff is at fault) is part of

the expense that has to be considered in the "can I afford this" decision. People who can afford to go to a restaurant but consider it savvy to chisel the waiter really piss me off.

[backscatter712]

36. What an asshole. If you can't afford to leave a decent tip, you can't afford to eat out.

Even in my impoverished state of finances, I find the money to leave a decent tip when I decide to eat out.

[Curmudgeoness]

37. Agreed. nt

[Taitertots]

7. Subway fares are a regressive shame to make poor people pay for public transportation

Same with the regressive shame that is forcing wait staff to pay for stolen food.

Economic civil disobedience is the only thing that will stop economic injustices. Do not accept these schemes to concentrate more and more wealth into the hands of an ever decreasing number of people.

[earth mom]

8. I posted this story because people are turning on each other&those who didn't cause this depression

Where's the pitchforks for the banksters & wall street? :grr:

[Gregorian]

10. Most people can't see cause and effect.

Look at global warming, for example. Do we see less flagrant living? No. I see people flying to Brazil to go surfing. I see people shopping multiple times per day. I see mutliple car households. I heard that the guy who surfs in Brazil was at a disco where the people talked about shopping in Miami. It's cars, cars, cars. A car centric society. A flagrant one, too.

People don't realize that if they have a mortgage, they are going to have to work like a slave to avoid any cessation of payments, or else.

There is a disconnect. I had one. I used to drink alcohol. Then I discovered that it wasn't in my best interest to poison myself. Same with nicotine.

It takes a step of logic. And it seems that if we don't teach algebra (now you're thinking I'm nuts), kids just don't get the logic skills needed in order to function in a MODERN society.

If you venture into a jungle alone, it's pretty obvious what the consequences are. But now things are invisible. Global warming is just a concept. The Great Bank Robbery is also just a concept, and even then it has not been addressed on the glitter strewn fake news shows.

I think we're all going over a cliff together. Who knows where this all goes. It's awfully hot for January here on the coast of northern California. When will cause and effect connect? Half way down the cliff?

[Kurovski]

44. President Obama says we have to leave all that behind to lean forward, move ahead,

and look the other way.

[Codeine]

13. People who dine and dash should have the living fuck beaten out of them.

Low lifes.

[Iggo]

22. Don't.Fucking.Steal.

Scum.

[JackRiddler]

24. Dine & dash is an act of desperation, and very fucked up because the waitstaff pay.

[WingDinger]

26. says WHO?

[JackRiddler]

29. Says the waitstaff and me.

Many years ago I was actually desperate enough to do it a few times, and I don't feel guilty about it. But you know what? I was also stupid enough not to realize that the waitstaff are the ones who get tabbed for the whole bill. Never did it again after I realized that.

I don't believe in the sincerity of your position, by the way.

[WingDinger]

30. I have done damage to work. NEVER have they had the guts to ask to nick me.

I caNNOT IMAGINE SOME RESTAURANT PUKE, DOING SO EITHER.

[saras]

27. WTF??

I am utterly amazed that even in New York it is legal for the owners of a restaurant to charge the WAIT STAFF for someone who runs off without paying. That is just too bizarre. That's like holding bank tellers personally responsible for the money they hand over to bank robbers.

Some restaurants make you pay when you get the food in the first place - it looks like they all ought to do this. But I suppose that's some of the pleasure of eating in fancy restaurants - you don't even have to think about crude things like money while you're enjoying being waited on by low-paid workers compelled to act servile.

But in a service economy, services are what's available to steal.

[backscatter712]

33. Don't dine-and-dash. That's not cool.

You're not ripping off an evil corporation that has it coming, you're ripping off some poor waitress who'll have the cost of the stolen meal taken out of her pay.

[HockeyMom]

34. Stealing Depends

Oh, it's not just at restaurants. My daughter has worked LP at supermarkets. Some of the stories she tells are very, very sad. Like the above Senior who couldn't afford his diapers, to a woman stealing groceries to feed her kid (baby food and formula). We aren't talking about people stealling credit cards, jewelry, etc., here.

You know what? They usually let tell these people don't do this again and let them go. You do know a certain percentage of loss, due to theft or spoilage, in written into their budgets.

[Liberal_in_LA]

39. interesting. going to read this article. thanks

[Raine]

42. If you can't pay for a restaurant meal than you have no business

going into one and ordering, go to a fucking MacDonalds instead! :mad:

[bluestate10]

47. I agree. nt.