{"id":243237,"date":"2010-03-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/city-goes-after-linkery-then-pulls-back\/"},"modified":"2010-03-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T08:00:00","slug":"city-goes-after-linkery-then-pulls-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/city-goes-after-linkery-then-pulls-back\/","title":{"rendered":"City goes after Linkery: then pulls back"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Linkery<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Por Christy Scannell<\/span><\/p>\n

Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The San Diego City Attorney\u2019s Office is allegedly pursuing action against The Linkery, <\/span>3794 30th St., saying the restaurant\u2019s service charge policy is against state law.<\/span><\/p>\n

The North Park eatery automatically adds an 18 percent fee to dine-in checks. Any money left in the form of tips above the service charge is donated to charity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tricia Pummill, a criminal prosecutor for the City Attorney, was unwilling to discuss litigation against any specific business but did explain the city\u2019s interest in pursuing such cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard from the public that people are unhappy with service charges being added to bills,\u201d she said. \u201cState law requires that you give sufficient information about any surcharges. The law says you cannot mislead people. Businesses must charge their advertised price. Any hidden increase in price is unfair to the competition who does include all costs in the stated price.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pummill cited restaurants, ticket agents and contractors as just some of the industries where service charges are added to bills. She refused to identify how many or which San Diego businesses her office is targeting, but did say the service charge issue is \u201ca current problem in our community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jay Porter, owner of The Linkery, said his service charge system creates equality for food service staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Apparently the City Attorney is scared that if restaurants charge for table service, people might start thinking of restaurant workers as professionals, and wonder why it’s okay that most of them make low wages and have no health insurance,\u201d he said. \u201cIf people start asking that question, it would upset the economic infrastructure of the whole service industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On his Web site (thelinkery.com), Porter points out he knows no other U.S restaurant that charges for table service, although he does mention that Chez Panisse in Berkeley and The French Laundry in Yountville include service charges but they allow tipping as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike Rossman, <\/span>co-owner\/manager of Terra and a member of the San Diego Restaurant Association, said he doesn\u2019t see any problem with The Linkery\u2019s policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey (The Linkery) have it posted clearly that [diners] will have an automatic gratuity on the bill,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery restaurant in San Francisco includes a 3 percent gratuity to pay for health insurance. During the gas crisis practically every distributor we had included a surcharge for their increased fuel consumption costs. That included liquor, produce and UPS.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pummill said the city attorney\u2019s office \u201cdid address\u201d the energy surcharges but she did not elaborate how they did so. Businesses found to be in violation in any current cases could face a court order to stop including service charges and a call for monetary restitution, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the city requires restaurants to absorb all costs, Rossman said, the result will be higher menu prices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf mandatory healthcare is passed we may have to do the same thing as San Francisco (where many restaurants tack on a healthcare surcharge), but no one wants to be the first ones to do that,\u201d he said. \u201cIn this economy we keep all of our entr\u00e9e prices below $20. If we are forced by regulations to include those costs in our bill then I’ve priced myself out of the market and out of business.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t understand where the city is coming from,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rossman said the San Diego Restaurant Association will be seeking advice from the California Restaurant Association\u2019s attorneys on the matter. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Actualizar:<\/span><\/strong> Uptown News<\/span><\/em> received the following statement this morning from <\/span>Tricia Pummill<\/span>, <\/span>assistant city attorney<\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The Consumer Protection Unit has decided not to file a court case against The Linkery restaurant for its pricing policy. Instead, we will work with the San Diego Restaurant Association to develop guidelines that address the complaints we have received from the public about hidden charges and surcharges.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Uptown News<\/span><\/em> will continue to follow the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Linkery By Christy Scannell Editor The San Diego City Attorney\u2019s Office is allegedly pursuing action against The Linkery, 3794 30th St., saying the restaurant\u2019s service charge policy is against state law. The North Park eatery automatically adds an 18 percent fee to dine-in checks. Any money left in the form of tips above the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":243236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"City goes after Linkery: then pulls back","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11593,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-no-images","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}