Sweetgreen, CASHLESS, 60+ stores nationwide. I hope they would come back.” But unbanked customers wouldn’t be able to come back. SWEETGREEN, the salad company has more than 60 stores across the country, is one of the largest chains to go cashless thus far-making the controversial switch in March for its DC area locations.Sweetgreen and Jetties estimate that cash customers accounted for about 10 percent of their business.“Even before we stopped taking cash, we saw the percentage of revenue drop from 40 percent to 10 percent in a span of a couple of years,” Thompson says.They might come back. And another 24.8 percent of District households are underbanked, bringing the total percentage of households who might have trouble swiping or inserting a card at a register to more than 36 percent. In D.C., 11.8 percent of all households are unbanked, meaning they don’t have access to traditional savings or checking accounts. Should it go cashless to streamline operations and reduce customer wait times? Or should it continue to accept cash in order to make its healthy food more accessible to all Washingtonians? “The reason not to is there are folks that don’t have a credit card and they can’t eat,” says Chaia co-owner Bettina Stern. Georgetown’s vegetarian taco restaurant Chaia is weighing a tough call that many of the region’s fast-casual eateries will grapple with as an already swollen market becomes even more saturated with competition. Washington CITY PAPER, "Casual Restaurants Are Going Cashless-And Cutting Off Their Unbanked Customers," "You’re systematically excluding a group of people who are already disadvantaged & disenfranchised,"- June 29, 2018. “On a selfish level, it’s made my life a lot easier. “In addition, this practice is discriminatory against youth, who are often unable to obtain a credit card, impacting many of our middle school and high school students.īy denying patrons the ability to use cash as a form of payment, businesses are effectively telling lower-income and young patrons that they are not welcome.”. “Banning the use of cash is a discriminatory practice that disproportionately impacts the 10% of DC residents who are unbanked, and an additional 25% of residents who are underbanked and may not have access to a credit card,” he said in a statement on his website. Which is exactly why Grasso and his fellow councilmembers introduced the bill. “And now they can’t have access to this restaurant?” “I’m concerned with more and more restaurants, businesses and shops going cashless because you’re systematically excluding a group of people who are already disadvantaged and disenfranchised,” Linnea Lassiter, an analyst at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, told the paper. A report last year by the Washington City Paper found that 27% of people in the US would have trouble using only a credit card to purchase products, and that the percentage in Washington DC is even higher. They also argue that having less cash lying around also minimizes the risk of crime and contributes to a safer environment for both their customers and employees.īut to some, not accepting cash is discriminatory. These retailers, which mostly serve upscale customers, say that going cashless speeds up transactions, improves customer service and makes for more accurate accounting. City councilmember David Grasso, and five other councilmembers who co-introduced the bill, are responding to the recent tide of retailers in their city and around the country – like the salad chain Sweetgreen – who are no longer accepting cash. The Cashless Retailers Prohibition Act of 2018 would make it illegal for restaurants and retailers not to accept cash or charge a different price to customers depending on the type of payment they use. In the nation’s capital cash is still king, and a new bill introduced this week wants to keep it that way. However, one city in the US is resisting that trend: Washington DC. Sweden has seen its use of cash drop to less than 2% of all transactions, and the number could be heading even lower in the next few years. Some banks in Australia have eliminated cash from their branches. In Belgium, it is illegal to buy real estate with cash. Going cashless seems to be a worldwide trend. Not accepting cash excludes service to those without access to credit cards, but a new bill would make it illegal for restaurants to refuse paper money. "Why Going Cashless Is Discriminatory – And What's Being Done To Stop It," The Guardian, July 15, 2018.
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