“Health” charge added to restaurant bill

Nothing succeeds in the travel industry like a bad idea. The latest hidden mandatory add-on is a “health” charge added to restaurant bills. As far as I know, this scam cropped up first in San Francisco, but you can count on it to spread.

The rationale for this one is to cover the employers’ mandatory contribution to the City’s “Healthy San Francisco” health-coverage system. The charge actually is levied on employers, but at least some restaurants are adding a few dollars or percentage points to each customer’s bill to cover this charge.

The restaurants’ excuse for assessing this charge separately is to let customers know how much they’re paying for employees’ health coverage. That’s the same excuse hotels use when they add “resort” or “housekeeping” fees to unsuspecting guests’ room bills. It’s the same excuse airlines would use to exclude fuel surcharges from their advertised fares if the Department of Transportation would allow them. And it’s sheer nonsense. Employees’ health insurance is no less of a cost of doing business than rent, property taxes, food costs, security services and all the other inputs businesses require to operate. To single out health care for a separate surcharge is unwarranted.

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Bag of Randomness

  • There’s someone in my life who I’m quite certain if I traced his or her bloodline, it would intersect with both Benedict Arnold and Judas – so now I need to walk on eggshells for quite a while.
  • And if you are reading this, there’s a good to very good chance that it isn’t you.
  • Tom Hanks is a fun guy to follow on Twitter.  Yesterday he posted photos of food that was left for him in the green room of certain talk shows, and this picture of him next to a set of Woody toys was kinda cute.
  • WifeGeeding had an event last night so I didn’t get a chance to watch Survivor.
  • I hope to finish my book this weekend.  If you are a fan of politics, especially all the behind the scenes stuff, then I highly recommend Game Change.  I’m usually not much of a reader, but I just can’t get enough of this book.
  • The biggest surprise for me thus far in the book, and the most interesting revelation is that McCain was going to run on the platform of just serving one term to prove he was serious about solving the country’s problem and to put any concern about his age at rest.
  • My Palm Pre received an interesting software update.  On of my major complaints was that if someone sent a text or left a voicemail, there wasn’t any indicator, like a blinking light, to indicate that I missed something.  Well, that’s fixed.  The other thing that I wanted but didn’t come with the phone was the ability to record video.  With this new update, I now have the ability to record, edit, and upload to YouTube.
  • The latter of those two things have me a little confused, since my phone always had the hardware it seems a bit odd that the phone itself wasn’t just shipped that way.
  • A Google executives says desktops will be irrelevant in three years.  I would agree with the exception of the desktop at the workplace.
  • The intro to The Marriage Ref is silly and doesn’t make sense with the baseball analogy.
  • There was lots of talk yesterday of Sarah Palin having a reality show, but she’s also coming out with a new book.
  • RNC Marketing 101
  • Baylor womens basketball play smacks a Tech player.
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Church that feeds needy faces court after neighbors complain

PHOENIX (AP) — On Saturday mornings, crowds of homeless gather with other needy people at picnic tables outside a church in an upscale Phoenix neighborhood, listen to sermons and settle in for sausage, pancakes and scrambled eggs.

The pastor says it’s the Lord’s work. Neighbors say it should be done elsewhere.

Residents say the homeless create blight and pose a danger to them, pointing to the case of a homeless felon caught with child pornography in the neighborhood. A complaint prompted city officials to order the year-old breakfast halted, saying it violated zoning laws.

Now, the dispute is in federal court in Phoenix, with the church saying the city is violating its treasured American rights to freedom of religion, as well as a federal law passed in 2000 that protects religious groups from city zoning rules.

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