Slashdot Mirror
Philadelphia Bans Cashless Stores (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, Philadelphia's mayor signed a bill that would ban cashless retail stores, according to The Morning Call. The move makes Philadelphia the first major city to require that brick-and-mortar retail stores accept cash. Besides Philadelphia, Massachusetts has required that retailers accept cash since 1978, according to CBS. The law takes effect July 1, and it will not apply to stores like Costco that require a membership, nor will it apply to parking garages or lots, or to hotels or rental car companies that require a credit or debit card as security for future charges, according to the Wall Street Journal. Retailers caught refusing cash can be fined up to $2,000.
Amazon, whose new Amazon Go stores are cashless and queue-less, reportedly pushed back against the new law, asking for an exemption. According to the WSJ, Philadelphia lawmakers said that Amazon could work around the law under the exemption for stores that require a membership to shop there, but Amazon told the city that a Prime membership is not required to shop at Amazon Go stores, so its options are limited. A top official in Philadelphia's Chamber of Commerce said that the ban will prevent Philadelphia from modernizing with the rest of the country. Cashless companies argue that cash slows down transactions when change needs to be counted and creates security risks for employees locking up at the end of the night. Supporters of the new law argue that "not accepting cash hurts poorer residents who may not be able to afford or qualify for a credit card or who want to avoid fees that come with changing cash into a prepaid debit card," reports Ars. "Additionally, privacy advocates say that being forced to use a digital form of payment to buy things is a de facto requirement to share records of their purchases with third-party companies."
Amazon, whose new Amazon Go stores are cashless and queue-less, reportedly pushed back against the new law, asking for an exemption. According to the WSJ, Philadelphia lawmakers said that Amazon could work around the law under the exemption for stores that require a membership to shop there, but Amazon told the city that a Prime membership is not required to shop at Amazon Go stores, so its options are limited. A top official in Philadelphia's Chamber of Commerce said that the ban will prevent Philadelphia from modernizing with the rest of the country. Cashless companies argue that cash slows down transactions when change needs to be counted and creates security risks for employees locking up at the end of the night. Supporters of the new law argue that "not accepting cash hurts poorer residents who may not be able to afford or qualify for a credit card or who want to avoid fees that come with changing cash into a prepaid debit card," reports Ars. "Additionally, privacy advocates say that being forced to use a digital form of payment to buy things is a de facto requirement to share records of their purchases with third-party companies."
This should be a legally enforceable policy - cash is legal tender! You must take cash as an option if you sell something. Gentry non-legal-tender "currencies" are whatever, but you don't kick buses/taxis off the road because Uber exists.
>"there is a growing divide between "The Rich" and "The Poor", and the middle-class keeps shrinking, forcing people who were once middle-class into the ranks of "The Working Poor""
That is not what is actually happening in the USA or the world. In both, the "poor class" keeps shrinking while both the middle andupper class have been increasing. In the world it is far more prevalent, but I will stick to the USA
http://www.aei.org/publication...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...
So you have to get the whole picture. ALL people are doing better. So although there is a greater divide on the extremes, far fewer people are actually negatively affected by it.
There isn't a fixed pie. The pie has been growing. More people are eating more pie than ever before.
The speed of the transaction, in my experience as someone that worked as a cashier, is usually killed by the customer not being ready to pay. As a cashier I could usually take the money, press all the necessary buttons on the register, and return the change faster than most customers could get the money out of their wallet/purse. Card transactions were slower than cash most of the time and it still seems that way, especially with the newer chipped cards. Paying with a Check was of course always the absolute slowest way to go about business.
I think the biggest boons to businesses in not accepting cash is reducing the chances of a robbery, cutting back on employee theft of cash, and cutting out conning the cashier by claiming incorrect change. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people claim they paid with a twenty instead of a ten.
Bank accounts are one of those catch 22 type things, once you are in the system you are in, but if you are outside of it, things can be difficult. Banks can also be surprisingly selective about who they allow to open accounts and redlining has been a historical problem. People with similar incomes often find themselves being marked as a risk or not depending on where they live.
Her phone, car, and person are each worth far more to criminals than a salon's revenue for a day. She is in danger merely by being outside.
Unless they demand payment upfront.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism