An Ontario MPP by the name of David Caplan (remember him, of eHealth infamy?) has introduced a bill that would put a stop to the automatic gratuities added to the bills of large tables. He thinks the policies surrounding the practice are unclear and that the decision to tip should exclusively be the right of the guest.

The bill’s raison d’être is an incident involving an Edmonton Oilers party and a hefty $17,000 restaurant bill that resulted. The hockey players were purportedly outraged at the 18% gratuity added to the bill, even though there were 50 of them and the bar tab alone was over $8,000.

Predictably, the brouhaha over this bill has started a heated debate on the Toronto Life website with people demonizing servers as lazy, ungrateful slackers making too much money off of an easy job and others defending the auto-grat as a necessary option for wait-staff to help them make end’s meet.

The former are wrong. Caplan’s wrong too.

Restaurants, like any other establishment, have policies. These policies should be clearly communicated to any potential guest, whether verbally or by being posted in a conspicuous location. If a guest doesn’t like the policy, they can leave and take their business elsewhere. If the policy is unfair and business sucks enough, a restaurant will usually change it in favor of a more profitable compromise.

Caplan says he doesn’t like it when the inclusion of an auto-grat is not mentioned to the guests. Leaving aside the fact that people should read their fucking bills carefully (mistakes happen), why not just enforce a rule requiring restaurants to ensure guests know what’s being added to their bills? This can be put on the website, on the menu and even be explained by the server. Banning seems like an overreaction.

In my industry, I’ve served many large tables where the only thing ensuring I got any tip from them was the auto-grat. Whether through cheapness or naiveté (I’m looking at you, tourists!) many guests are only too happy to pay exactly what they owe. Sometimes, when one guest is paying, they feel threatened enough by the large bill that they undertip and the same thing can happen with split cheques.

Large parties take up more time with multiple requests and they require more tables, losing the chance for that space to be utilized that night for other guests. Often enough, another server needs to assist requiring a further split of the gratuity. When I work all night on one table and walk out of there with a measly 10%, I feel like I wasted my time and I’m not the only one in the service industry who feels that way.

Maybe some servers feel that having automatic gratuity enables them to “phone it in” but most of the career professionals I’ve met would be insulted to be lumped in with those amateurs. Doing your best to make someone’s night special only to be fucked over because they’re cheap is a special kind of pain.

Servers in Ontario make $8.90 per hour. An eight-hour shift is worth $71.20. If they serve twenty-two tables that night and every table tips them 15% (let’s assume each bill was about $70 with a couple of big boys weighing in at around the $400 mark) they stand to make $330 which brings their daily wage up to a respectable $401.20. (A person making $23 per hour only makes $184 per day.)

But not everyone tips that way. Assume the service was perfectly acceptable. Of those two parties, one leaves 10% and one leaves nothing at all. This takes $80 off of the server’s final take. They still put as much time with each table as they did when they were receiving 15% but they’re getting much less and they still have to tip out the bartender, bussers and maybe even the management (the completely unfair and illegal “house tip”) on their final sales. They’re getting fucked over.

Most times, the support staff is paid anywhere from 2-10% of the server’s final sales. Looking back up at the example above, we can see that the total sales for the night are $2,200 for our server which means they’re shelling out $44 whether they take home $330 or $250. If they have a really bad night, they could be walking out of the restaurant with $120. Now they’re about par with the fella who earns $23 per hour and he can sleep easy at night knowing he’s going to earn the same wage each and everyday. Meanwhile, the poor server is living out his own hellish version of a Pulp song.

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Let’s go back to that situation with the Oilers and Maurizio Terrigno, the owner of this so-called upscale restaurant in Calgary which will clearly show how this fuss over gratuities can be resolved by communication of the restaurant’s policies with guests.

Oilers spokesman Allan Watt claims that the party disputed the bill, there was apparently some miscommunication with regards to the prices of alcohol, they paid a reduced bill with the proper gratuity and left. Up until this point it sounds like how most disagreements over a bill are usually handled.

Terrigno wasn’t satisfied with that. He proceeded to call up every media outlet he could find to complain about his restaurant’s treatment at the hand’s of these hooligans. The owner claims that the players tried to argue that they should pay by the bottle instead of paying for individual shots and didn’t want to pay for an expensive bottle of brandy after one of the players took a swig out of it. He goes on to say that they threatened his staff and that the most upsetting thing for him about this whole affair was that his staff wouldn’t be getting a gratuity. He also says that they refused to pay until he threatened to call the police.

I’ve met my fair share of asshole owners and Terrigno sounds like he’d fit in really well with that lot. The players may very well have gotten out of hand but they’re not the ones still disputing the bill. Short of talking to the staff (and I’m surprised no one from the media ever did) we’ll never know who was the bigger jerk.

So the answer clearly lies in better communication between the guests and the establishment. Is this really worth legislating? Unless Caplan’s going to amend the bill to protect the poor service staff who are caught in the middle, I’m going to say no. Anyone who gets upset about automatic gratuities for inadequate service already has all the means at their disposal to make it right.

Coincidentally, what is proper tipping etiquette? 15% of the final bill (minus the HST) is the norm with 20% being reserved for good service. You can tip $1-2 for most drinks unless they’re really elaborate and you’re running a tab in which case the above rules apply.

If you’re not clear on what the practice of the restaurant is with regards to tipping, ask. Don’t leave your tip with anyone you don’t want to have it. If you’re at a really fancy place, I would give separate tips to both the server and the bartender (particularly if the latter is of some note). If you get really bad service, talk to the manager and they’ll work something out. Maybe the shitty server will get canned too.

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