SF Businesses Decline Cash, Fearing it Could Spread the Virus (sfchronicle.com) 171
When customers step in for a cup of coffee at Ritual Coffee Roasters on Valencia Street, a sign informs them that cash is no longer welcome. The coffee shop wants customers to use contactless forms of payments to pick up their cups of joe, in an effort to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. More and more businesses are turning away from cash, fearing that the virus could be sitting on banknotes and coins, as it exchanges hands from person to person in everyday transactions. From a report: "Looking at the situation with COVID-19 getting worse, we decided to switch," said Eileen Rinaldo, owner of Ritual Coffee. "Cash is notoriously covered with germs and it's a matter of eliminating that point of contact." The reluctance to take cash is emerging even though San Francisco ordered most businesses to accept cash last year, out of a concern that the trend to cashless payments was shutting out those without access to smartphones and credit cards. The city said it's still enforcing the rule and does not plan to lift it temporarily. "We're not currently engaged in any discussions about a freeze on this important equity policy," said Gloria Chan, spokeswoman for the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. "As a city, we still need to ensure everyone can purchase goods, whether or not they have access to credit or noncash forms of payment." Still, fears of cash abound. Other companies, like food delivery service DoorDash, are providing cashless options for payments. And on Saturday, cash toll collection on all seven Bay Area bridges was temporarily suspended under Gov. Gavin Newsom's orders, to curb the spread of the virus.
It's disgusting (Score:5, Informative)
"Also found on bills: fecal matter. A 2002 report in the Southern Medical Journal showed found pathogens — including staphylococcus — on 94% of dollar bills tested. Paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet. And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. It's enough to make you switch to credit."
http://content.time.com/time/s... [time.com]
Re:It's disgusting (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's disgusting (Score:5, Funny)
Wait till they hear about the dihydrogen monoxide scourge.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:3)
That stopped being funny twenty years ago. Get your own material.
The irony of your post given the current moderation is so thick you could cut it with a dihydrogenmonoxide jet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's disgusting (Score:5, Informative)
more germs than a household toilet.
Comparisons to toilet seats are often made for dramatic effect, but toilet seats are generally fairly clean.
Kitchen counters, especially if they are wiped with a rag or sponge, are more likely to have pathogens than a toilet seat.
Other surfaces worse than toilet seats: phones, doorknobs, keyboards. Even on a toilet, the handle is worse than the seat.
Re:It's disgusting (Score:5, Interesting)
Also cotton/linen textiles (like US cash) are generally inhospitable to viruses, and poor vectors for transmission. Plastic credit cards and/or the keypads to enter your PIN, on the other hand....
Re: (Score:2)
Other surfaces worse than toilet seats: phones, doorknobs, keyboards. Even on a toilet, the handle is worse than the seat.
And I was just reading an article today about how cardboard is a pretty poor way to transmit viruses (because it's porous). I'm pretty sure bills would be in the same territory. Coins, on the other hand, might carry virus particles around reasonably well. But let's not confuse ourselves with facts or reasoning...
Regardless, I suspect the outlets we're talking about were already eager to stop taking cash (to avoid liability, labor costs, trips to the bank, theft) and this was just the final straw. Or a good
Re: (Score:2)
Coins, on the other hand, might carry virus particles around reasonably well.
Not if we went back to real metals like copper and silver. I'm not as sure about silver, but copper is terribly toxic to tiny critters.
Oh my God, the coronavirus is a conspiracy to get us back on the gold standard!
Re: (Score:2)
The one that always grosses me out the most is bathroom faucet knobs: after you (or anybody else in a shared restroom) shits, it's the last thing you touch before you wash your hands and the first thing you touch after you wash them.
It always drives me crazy to see automated soap and paper towel dispensers coupled with manual faucet controls, "to prevent the spread of germs".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
a) Why are you still using paper for money? Are your notes not plastic yet, with transparent and/or holographic parts to counter counterfeiting?
b) Credit cards? USA doesn't do debit cards, linked to real money in a bank account?
c) Please, USA, join the 21st century!
Links:
a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
a2) https://www.harper-adams.ac.uk... [harper-adams.ac.uk]
b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
c) note that the link for 'a', Australia first issued plastic currency in 1988...
Re: (Score:2)
a) Tradition
b) We do both, but our consumer fraud laws are not all that robust. You can reverse charges on a credit card if you're scammed or if there's fraud. If someone does fraud on your debit card, you have to belong to a good bank or you're SOL. My credit union will restore the funds linked to a debit card until their investigation is complete. Lots of banks won't, so you're out of your money until they wrap up their process. Plus most places tie sweet benefits to credit card usage, since people can't
Re: (Score:2)
Re: It's disgusting (Score:2)
I carry both credit cards and a debit card, but I usually use a credit card since there are points/rewards for doing so. As long as you pay your balance in full each month, it is a net win for the consumer.
I like to keep $50 or so in cash in my wallet as well (for those increasingly rare times I end up in a cash-only situation) so if I start running low, I will use the debit card to get cash back at the supermarket.
Re:This is rich... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is really about attacking cash because it's untraceable. It's already a "tool for the raghead terrorists." Now it's disease laden.
Yeah, let's go ban cash so we can hyperinflate, have full control over your wealth, and assign you a social credit score. This will all fly in California as the smog has been displaced by a low ceiling of second hand THC smoke. Brah.
Re:This is rich... (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be confused. The story is about a private business wanting to refuse cash, and the city government wanting them to accept cash. Do you think the coffee shop is attacking cash because it's untraceable?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If it is Ritual Coffee ... (Score:2)
then I don't have to memorize it or use a spell slot to create the coffee ... but it takes 10 minutes to get your cup of joe.
Re: (Score:3)
A large corporate owner of cannabis dispensaries... which can only use cash legally. Are you perhaps confused, and they only want to be able to use the same banking services that everyone else already enjoys?
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of these coffee shops are basically frontends for large businesses that want to take your data.
I see you're in the aforementioned California surrounded by THC. Maybe you should lay off the grass for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, let's go ban cash so we can hyperinflate,
I'm pretty sure you can have hyperinflation with cash.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more noticeable with cash. When you're trucking around million dollar bills in wheelbarrows, that's hard to hide or ignore.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about USA, but my country ('Straya) has a unique serial number on every banknote. If dispensed via an ATM there is no reason why those serial numbers couldn't be read and assigned to the receiver.
Likewise, I'm sure money counting machines in banks could also easily read the serial numbers of the notes they are counting. And be required to do so and send the results to Treasury.
It's not rocket science to suggest that this is already done on a national scale (I have no idea if it is or not, but i
Re: (Score:2)
The problem isn't necessarily tracking the hundreds and fiftys from a bank or ATM. The problem is you use the fifty to buy breakfast from Pie Face and get a couple of twenties as change. The bank might know the fifty was you, and the twenties went out to Pie Face when they did a bank run the day before, but they have no idea who they are going to.
Then you use the twenty to buy coffee at Dutch Smuggler, getting a ten back that someone else used to get their coffee, but they got that bill as change from the
Re: (Score:2)
This is really about attacking cash because it's untraceable.
Yes a coffee shop in San Francisco is secretly working for the government to strip Americans of their privacy. /sarcasm
Yeah, let's go ban cash so we can hyperinflate, have full control over your wealth, and assign you a social credit score.
None of your tinfoil hat nuttery requires any change to the way Americans handle cash.
This will all fly in California as the smog has been displaced by a low ceiling of second hand THC smoke.
I'm sure what's going on in your apartment to come up with your post is not representative of the whole of California.
China had been sanitizing cash (Score:5, Interesting)
Relatedly, China had been sanitizing cash to try to control the outbreak [indiatimes.com], even though a lot of payments in China are done over WeChat.
And the added benefit. . . (Score:3)
Is that it stop poor people from shopping at their store and scaring away their other customers. This just so happens to be something San Francisco businesses have wanted for a while.
Not all can do this. (Score:2)
If you have already been served, and they bill you for goods and services already consumed can not decline cash payments. Cash is the legal tender for all debts private or public.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
https://blogs.findlaw.com/free... [findlaw.com]
The "debt is not cancelled" - you still owe them in some form that they are willing to accept. You may take the chance that they won't try to call in the cops to have you charged with petty larceny, but that's all it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
You need to read the article you linked more carefully. It is talking about "payments for goods or services" but here we're talking about payment of a debt. These are different things. If you go into McDonald's and order a burger they will request payment for the goods and can legally refuse cash if they want and then fail to deliver the goods. If you go into a fancier restaurant where you order, eat, and then pay, that's paying off a debt. If they refuse cash after you've eaten then that can clear you
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. [cornell.edu]" And what is the definition of "legal tender"? "Legal tender is currency that cannot legally be refused in payment of debt. [uslegal.com]"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They need to figure out (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to figure out contact-less coffee cups if this is really the reason to not accept cash.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure about you but generally I don't hand a coffee cup to the barista, and they don't hand it to the next customer.
The USA is behind in this. Most shops here stopped taking cash 2 weeks ago. Also our local banks have increased the contactless limit to 100EUR so we can pay for nearly all transactions without even touching the pin terminal.
My local pharmacy is not even taking credit cards (Score:4, Informative)
My local pharmacy is not even taking credit cards in the drive thru.
They have you hold it up to the window and they key in the number.
Re:My local pharmacy is not even taking credit car (Score:4, Interesting)
My local pharmacy is not even taking credit cards in the drive thru.
They have you hold it up to the window and they key in the number.
I wonder if that that gets processed as a "card not present" transaction, since the chip/strip wasn't used, and if that could affect either your or the merchant's liability.
Silly (Score:3, Insightful)
>fearing that the virus could be sitting on banknotes and coins"
There is no special danger from cash any more than anything else you have to give or take from someone. Yes, people touch cash. They also touched that package of toilet paper or whatever else you bought, the door handle to the store, the cup used to hold the coffee, the food bags they just delivered to you, your receipt, your basket, etc, etc, etc.
USE COMMON SENSE. When out and around, DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE unless your hands are washed. Wash your hands [properly] regularly and between places and events. Done.
Sure there is. (Score:3)
There is no special danger from cash any more than anything else you have to give or take from someone. There is no special danger from cash any more than anything else you have to give or take from someone. ...
SURE there is - to them, and their NEXT customers.
The risk of virus on the goods and change are only to the customer making the purchase.
=====
If I have to go buy anything during this hooraw, at one of the places that does a "drive up to pick up" virus-mitigation scheme, I plan to line the back of th
Re: (Score:2)
Cash is a huge vector for diseases, and COVID stick around on paper for days. and contact many hands.
But please, keep spreading your dumb ass bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no special danger from cash any more than anything else you have to give or take from someone.
There is. Cash often has to be counted multiple times through its way in the store. It has to be counted when you receive it from the customer, counted again when the cashier changes shift, counted again at the end of the day, counted again at the beginning of a day, counted again when packing up to send to the bank or when handed to another customer as change.
Goods came from manufacturer/wholesaler to the store, then from store to customer, that's it. Taking stock generally do not require touching the g
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because after I spend the day touching my face, I then lick my face clean. What a terrible habit.
Oh wait, you thought the virus bored through your face skin?
Re: (Score:2)
DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE unless your hands are washed.
If you ever figure out how to do that, let everyone know. I guarantee you do it multiple times an hour even when trying hard not to.
Re: (Score:2)
>"If you ever figure out how to do that, let everyone know. I guarantee you do it multiple times an hour even when trying hard not to."
It is extremely difficult, especially when you have lots of allergies. This is why a mask can be very useful (although very annoying, too).
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. I saw a nice explanation of it from a physiological standpoint. We actually touch our face to self-soothe. It's so hardwired that fetuses do it in utero. It's an unconscious bodily mechanism like scratching an itch or yawning. Sure, if you really, really pay attention to not doing that, to exclusion of everything else, you can avoid it. But as soon as your attention wanders, your body takes back over and does it.
Re: (Score:2)
>"Cash passes through a LOT of hands in a typical day."
Agreed. But so do lots of other things, like doorknobs, light switches, elevator buttons, railings, shopping carts and baskets, the self-checkout touch screen, faucet levers, etc. When I get home from shopping (without touching my face), I don't touch cash again (if I even used cash).... I wash my hands. When I go out again, I do consider it "contaminated."
The only ones with an unusual risk from cash are cashiers. And really, bills are not a good
Re: (Score:3)
>"Why do you think a virus lives the same amount of time on all those thing? Is it because you are ignorant douche and just pulling shit out of your ass?"
Wow, really intelligent postings from you. But I guess if you call people names, that helps your arguments.
The virus lives far longer on ALL those things I listed compared to bills, and at least as long (but not longer) on coins. As I said, there is no MORE risk from cash than other things people are touching and exchanging. I didn't say it was witho
Re: (Score:3)
China about as Communist as we are a Democracy.
In both places only the elites get to chose leadership and laws.
Except in one place, you can get health care without going bankrupt
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fuck a cashless society (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fuck a cashless society (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You shouldn't have to pay through a private money lender.
I'm confused why you Americans always equate cashless to a private money lender. Do you not have debit cards?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's what the credit card issuers want you to believe. The reality is that you've already pre-paid for it via prices that are about 2%-3% higher to cover their credit card processing charge. At an annual inflation rate of 4%, a month's free interest works out to 0.33%. So 2.5% - 0.33% - real transaction expenses = profit for the credit card issuer (and thus overhead rolled into the product price that you're paying for). They even l
Re:Fuck a cashless society (Score:5, Informative)
I make it a point to use only credit cards which give 2% or more back in rewards. At least that way I know the money being made by the credit card issuer is much closer to their actual cost.
Those "rewards" are also taken from the merchant in the form of even higher discount rates for rewards cards. Basically the merchant gets screwed, always.
Re: (Score:3)
Or more.
Though I've been wondering if there are cards that offer a high reward without an annual fee for these annoying cashless businesses - big or small, if you don't want my cash, I certainly want to benefit greatly from it. Maybe one of those 4% cash back.
Plus useful for delive
Re: Fuck a cashless society (Score:2)
For most businesses, the cost (labor and otherwise) of dealing with cash is more than the 2-3% credit card processing fee.
Handling/storing/counting/securing/transporting/depositing/lossage all cost the business money.
Illinois Tollway wants cash gone (Score:3, Informative)
Virtually every text sign on the Illinois Tollway system announces "DO NOT STOP AT TOLLBOOTH! I-PASS OR PAY ONLINE ONLY!"
They've been working to remove cash tollbooths for years. All new or rebuilt interchanges are cashless.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Every tollway wants cash gone. The cost both in management and in traffic on the tollway for handling cash is incredible. Many countries have gotten rid of cash tolls entirely and without any government tracking conspiracy or virus prevention involved.
Ban the RENT a car daily toll admin fees for ETC (Score:2)
Ban the RENT a car daily toll admin fees for ETC
Meh (Score:2)
Innocence? Read some Blake. His musings cut both ways in terms of power and powerlessness.
https://poets.org/poem/augurie... [poets.org]
uoa
SOMEONE HELP ME (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You guys don't have contact-less readers yet? I live in a tiny town in Canada and all stores have had this for more than half a decade now.
Re: (Score:2)
Wishing I had mod points, but I've commented multiple times on exactly the same point - but here in 'Straya it's been about a decade or so that we've had contactless, I think? A number of shops, like my closest burger joint (20m from the office building I work in) is EFTPOS only, no cash.
And credit cards? Who pays with a credit card unless they're gaming the system (as you should if you can) and getting all those bonus points as their entire pay goes into it (I have a mortgage so can't game it well). I use
Iron it! (Score:2)
Re: Iron it! (Score:2)
Excuse me ... (Score:2)
[Reaches for check book]
Saw this last week where I live (Score:3)
It's practically laughable. So you were handling money yesterday but have decided not to handle money today?
All those years of handling money exposed you to everything from influenza to e coli to cocaine.
No cash for tolls on New York State Thruway ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow...
No, I'll stop spamming, I've said enough.
Re: (Score:2)
That cracks me up. They spend 40 cents to mail me a bill for a $1 toll for one of the bridges. By the time its all said and done with the time and people involved how can they make a profit?
Why is the coffee shop open? (Score:2)
Is it weird that a coffee shop is even open? A cup of joe and a bran muffin qualifies as 'essential business'? Hard times here people. Do what grandpa did and get a mug of Sanka.
well (Score:5, Insightful)
well, since the employees are handling the cups and other needed condiments, the customers need to quit buying from those businesses since the virus can also be transfer that way.
Re: (Score:3)
An employee handling a cup is quite different from you passing that cup to the employee, the employee handling it, stacking it with cups that had been touched by hundreds of other people and then passing it on to the next random customer.
Please think beyond what is immediately in front of you.
Sidenote: Where I live they stopped accepting cash almost everywhere several weeks ago and all the banks have raise the contactless payment limits to cover 99% of transactions so that people don't even need to touch th
cotton vs paper (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And four hours on copper, which is why the usually helpful brass fittings found everywhere on cruise ships did fuckall on the Diamond Princess.
It's no worse than it's ever been (Score:2)
LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS (Score:3)
I seldom carry cash myself, but Legal Tender is Legal Tender. Anything else requires the authorization of some authority that can reject, block, ban, your use of payment method.
We all need a baseline method the universally accepted. Cash is that method.
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't mean what you think it does. There is a cafe here that is cashless. Perfectly legal.
Welcome to the 21st Century! (Score:2)
Would the US love of "paper" money lessen if they found out that it was invented in China?
The developed world has been using contactless payments for a while now. More and more businesses have been going "plastic only", long before Covid-19 was a global problem. Does anyone actually genuinely believe that cash only transactions are not known to their government if it chooses? The best description of that is gullible!
I can think of no cases where I would have to pay cash to avoid government scrutiny. The
Greenwashing (Score:2)
Some S.F. stores have been trying to ban cash for a while now, so much so that S.F. actually passed a law to prevent exactly that; https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-franciscos-cashless-ban-now-in-effect-stores-that-dont-comply-could-get-slapped-with-fine [ktvu.com]
Now the stores are trying paint cash with the covid-19 brush. I suppose if it wasn't covid-19 it would be child pornography, or terrorists, or sex trafficking -- whatever's hot to hate these days.
Cash is a disease vector, so launder your money.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
One method spreads biological viruses, the other spreads cyber viruses.
Contagion is a word used to give emphasis to both the pathogen's characteristics and as equally to the conditions and circumstances of its hosts' behaviors to advance or diminish a pathogen's advance.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So now instead of getting a couple of bills that had been safely in my wallet the whole time, exchanged at a nice breezy toll both, they are going several pieces of assorted paper that have been sitting on my desk, breathed upon, handled and even licked for those who don't have peel-n-close envelopes and will process thousands of these in a fully enclosed office.
Corona virus on cardboard dies by three orders of magnitude in 24 hours, taking it down to undetectable levels from a sneezed-on condition in that
Re: (Score:2)
Since you don't understand how viruses work, why don't you just STFU?
Re: (Score:2)
Why don't they just email the bill to you, or deduct it from your bank account automatically as you pass through an electronic toll gate? Assuming you've got the e-toll tag in your vehicle, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
WTF?
This is increasingly hilarious the more I read!
I open up my bank app on my phone or PC, type in some numbers, click "done" and the bill is paid. Car rego, drivers licence, shire rates, internet, water, power, gas, all done online via phone or PC (phone is actually faster, my banks app is better than their webpage).
It takes under a minute, usually, to pay a bill.
What is this obsession with cash and cheques and wasting time, money, effort moving around actual physical bits of paper, let alone stamps, enve
Re: (Score:3)
That will need ID and a bank account.
Not true. I do not have to carry any form of ID when I am out of work. I do when I'm at work (a hospital) but as this is a free country, I do not need to carry any ID or even to carry a bit of plastic to show how I am allowed to drive. As a proper geek, I know my social security number, Driving licence, my old army number and other fun stuff but those would not be acceptable in a police state that does make you carry such things.
The only thing I have on me is a piece of supposedly smart plastic in my pho