Refusing to participate would be avoiding restaurants that have table service because you are expected to tip.

You are participating, but participating very badly. The waiter has agreed to accept a lower wage for waiting on you with the expectation that you will pay for your service, and then you cheat him by not paying for the service. That would be like a student letting you tutor him for an hour and then handing you a $5 bill.

Oh, the argument that a server’s job is easy is a joke. It’s not a job you need a degree for, but you’re on your feet all day and believe me, people are more often rude to servers than they are kind. It can be both physically exhausting and emotionally demanding, even if it’s not rocket science. It’s the same way in retail. You take a lot of crap from people for some of the lowest paying jobs.

I am not sure if they are trying to get around sales tax or income tax by labeling a veiled service charge as a mandatory gratuity. Possibly they double dip by using the mandatory gratuity as wages and a business expense write off. Of course, it is more likely that they were just trying to sound fancy and wrote a service charge as a mandatory gratuity without realizing the meaning of the words.

However, the diners should not be criminally liable for a rational interpretation of the terms of the menu. This really sounds in Contract and should be interpreted by a court in a civil action and not in a criminal context. In fact, a court should look at the plain meaning of the words and find that, absent some other language defining the terms on the menu, the diners cannot be liable for something above and beyond what is due.

In other words, the problem is with the terms of the menu and “mandatory gratuity” should be changed to “service charge.”

For those patting themselves on the back b/c they are big tippers, go crazy and tip 50%, big shots. It will simply make matters worse by promoting a dubious entitlement for carrying plates and utensils.

To the person who derided wait staff by saying the job could be done by 10 year-olds. Wrong. I’ve eaten at family restaurants and been served by 12 year olds. You would be surprised how offensive they can be on account of their inexperience…like saying “are you done with that yet” rather than “I’ll take that if you’re finished”. That stuff really diminishes the quality of your dining experience.
Personally I tip whenever a certain amount of personal servitude is required. A waiter has to do pretty much whatever a customer wants so I tip them. The lady at my coffee shop (not s-bux) has to deal with my micromanagement of how my espresso is made. She gets tipped too. A surgeon or computer repairman does not have to do whatever I say. No tip for them.
If there was a reform of the minimum wage laws for wait staff, I’d still tip. Especially if my table had been particularly demanding.

I am dismayed at the contempt that many of these posters show towards waiters. I’d spit in your food for them.

Even the tipped worker received no tips, the pay is still at least $7.25 per hour as paid by the employer.

I understand why gratuity should be higher at fancy restaurants- generally such meals are longer, with more courses and more attentive service. Still, in an ideal world, I don’t think a % is the best way to calculate the extra appropriate tip. Whether I order mashed potatoes or or porterhouse, it’s one plate to bring over. The % system is also unfair at breakfast- what do I tip on a $5 meal? It would be insulting to leave $1.

I’d much rather have servers paid more and factor it all into the meal prices, but really (since the tip system is already in place), it wouldn’t work unless a LOT of places did it at once. Patrons wouldn’t know what changed, and would tip anyway (or not go, because they see a price hike). How many times to you see people ask their servers about things that are clearly spelled out on the menu?

Plus, why should a larger bill mean a larger tip? Whether I order house red or an expensive wine with my food the waiter’s job is identical.

America; the land of the free to charge whatever the hell you like eh?

Un-tip-ing is a way to tell some people they should look for another job. The waistress, the cook, the owner, they all should do something else.

For me as an European/German it would be very unusual to find this, although i have seen similar in Italy.

What a backward system that only favours the owner of the restaurant. BOO! BOO! BOO!
If the owner of the restaurant paid the wait staff a decent wage and all tips were up to the diners to decide, based on the service received, and given as a bonus to their wage…everyone would be happier. YAY! YAY! YAY!

Also, more ridiculous stories coming out of the US, why am I not surprised.

Its that kind of self-centered entitled thinking that ensures I never tip unless the service was AMAZING. Then I toss on 2 or 3$’s.

@Mitch: I’m not claiming responsibility for social change. I’m claiming that the entire system is retarded, and I refuse to participate in it. If that means the server who waited on me is out 3 or 4$ for essentially 5 minutes or so (AT MOST) of work, then BOOHOO; so be it.

I make 15$ an hour tutoring between my classes. I don’t get tipped ensuring people get good grades, that help them for the rest of their careers, nor do I ever expect too. Neither should people who pickup a plate of food from a cook, and walk it 15 bloody feet.

And now I’m hungry. Thanks.

So why not just give the staff the standard minimum wage, up the food prices a bit to keep the restaurant’s profit the same, and avoid all the angst that the whole stupid tipping scenario causes?

Honestly, I just can’t understand why doing a service job in a restaurant is paid differently from every other job in the world.

I do think it’s necessary that a server be tipped; the majority of servers rely almost solely on their tips as a main source of income. However, perhaps 18 or 20% is little steep for a mandatory add-on. Perhaps 15%, which seems like a good compromise, would allow for the server to be compensated, perhaps more fairly, given the increased number of orders, but would not be outrageous, especially considering that sometimes service is lousy.

That said, I think a person should have a right to refuse a tip if it’s not required 100% of the time. If the tip were always included, as in many countries, then complaints would decline.

Also, being arrested for this matter is ludicrous. I can see a court date being fair – an act like this could be considered equal to a traffic fine violation, and treated as such in court.

1) Tipping has reached a point where it is now often an uncomfortable part of the patrons overall experience and unfortunately one of the most memorable as it’s one of the last things experienced. Since the customer experience is just as important as the food… privately owned restaurants should definitely consider doing away with tipping as it might be better to just let your customers leave full and happy rather than being overly judged at tipping time.

2) I’ve traveled a great deal and the best service by far were in those nations where waiting is a profession. They receive an education, have to pass governmental requirements, are paid a professional salary and therefore take their jobs very seriously. Bad service? There are many others waiting in line to take their job so competition weeds out the bad ones and the restaurant, staff and customers are all the better for it.

This probably wouldn’t be implemented in chain restaurants but at least people would have options and know what to expect from both types of systems.

http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/tip.asp

Most times and for most people when patrons enjoy their meal, it’s because they enjoyed their meal. The lion’s share of the tip rightfully belongs to the kitchen staff.

When was the last time anyone chose a place because of the wait staff?

I’m sure setting the table, bringing the drinks and meals, refiling the water glasses, punching up the cash register, and all the while presenting a positive yet unobtrusive attitude require top-flight Ph.D.s these days, and most restaurant patrons should be just grateful for the uncanny superhuman acumen of wait staff, but honestly, get over yourselves. If there weren’t ten people in line waiting to take your sub-par paying job because it requires the skills of a ten year old, restaurant owners would compete to pay you better the same way they compete for chefs.

Tipping is the most asinine aspect of the restaurant industry because it’s predicated on the assumption that patrons should not expect good and proper service as the norm. What if every industry were like that?

Need a good mechanic? How about a good dentist, defense lawyer, plastic surgeon, or oncologist? Or how about tipping the turkey farmer and processor for your delicious Thanksgiving turkey, and especially for not, you know, tampering with your food?

Besides, the places paying sub-par are probably not places renowned for their service to begin with, and if your wait skills and/or other skills are that good, why are you working in a sub-par paying establishment?

Ultimately, the relevant “tip” here is, when in Bethlehem, stick to fast food and self-serve because Bethlehem cops are no doubt generously “tipped” by its sub-par paying establishments to enforce their tipping “mandates”.

Personally, I don’t go to places where there’s a mandatory gratuity. It’s insulting. Just be honest and raise the prices on the menu.

I do tip well (typically 20+%, believe it or not), but the tip is a bonus, not a requirement.

If you don’t tip you don’t deserve to get waited on. You are not an agent of social change when you don’t pay for your service. It does not make the management pay their wait staff better. It just makes you a cheap asshole.

But this restaurant and the police who aided and abetted them are so far in the wrong here that they deserve a major smack-down. If the restaurant (and police) consider “mandatory gratuities” to actually be a “service fee” rather than a gratuity they would have had to collect (and send to the county/state/Feds) sales tax on those monies.

I’m not familiar with this particular restaurant’s practices, but none of the restaurants I’ve ever visited collect/pay sales tax on these “mandatory gratuities” and I believe it is highly unlikely this restaurant does that either. As a consequence of claiming that the amount in dispute was an owed fee, the restaurant ought to be promptly audited and billed by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue and by the IRS to determine what they owe in delinquent taxes and penalties. And I hear the 2006 federal tax law changes add new, guaranteed bounties for whistleblowers who turn in businesses that are underpaying their taxes…

That said, I believe if you cannot afford the tip, you can’t afford to eat out. Go to a buffet or McDonald’s, where you don’t have someone running around catering to your every demand.

Yes, sometimes you get sub-par service and that (in my opinion) is worthy of a sub-par tip (less than 15%), but the situation was clearly handled poorly by the customers. And let’s be honest, we don’t know exactly what was going on in the restaurant that night, so we can’t know all the specifics of the situation, and regardless, a 0% tip (in our culture) is entirely uncalled for. The bottom line is that some things are beyond a server’s control. A waitress cannot help how fast the kitchen works, and some people drink an entire soda in less than 30 seconds, so refills can be impossible to keep up with at times. So… I say cut the waitstaff a little slack because we don’t know exactly what kind of customer those college students were.

However, the idea of a mandatory tip is silly. I’ve eaten in only a couple of places that had that, including restaurants in Europe.

Three of us were getting some sandwiches in Rome once. Total cost about: 15 euros. If we were to sit down at their not-very-fancy outdoor tables instead of the nice park across the street, we would have paid almost 50 euros. We sat across the street where it was free.

gra?tu?i?ty
??/gr??tu?ti, -?tyu-/ [gruh-too-i-tee, -tyoo-]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip.
2. something given without claim or demand.