LogFAQs > #946003997

adjl posted...

The only possible benefit I can see to the city explicitly "allowing" it is that customers are more likely to be sympathetic to a "Covid surcharge" than to the restaurants increasing their prices without such a public justification.

I can actually see it working the opposite way as well, though. Namely, some people might be more understanding if a business needs to raise prices to survive in the current climate (especially if it's a smaller, local restaurant where they feel like the owners are "just trying to get by"), whereas people in general tend to have a very strong knee-jerk negative reaction to anything involving "tax".

The key problem is that people hear the word "tax" and assume the extra money is going to the government, and there's pushback because of that, whereas business owners explicitly saying "We have to raise prices to survive during a pandemic" is more likely to trigger people's innate sympathy (or fear that "If I don't pay more, this place I like might have to close").
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