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Comment by deuslovult | Hacker News Reader

A personal anecdote:

At Joe & the Juice in Palo Alto (cashless), I was buying a drink with my friend, and a clearly homeless man in front of us was trying to buy a coffee with cash. They refused and he got upset, so my friend paid for his coffee to de-escalate.

We were outside when the cashier ran up to us in the street, explaining "Please don't buy drinks for these guys, they come in here and get a drink and use that to stay all day. It's not the look we're going for, and it's one of the reasons why we have this cashless policy."

Cashless stores are convenient and I understand the arguments for them (as well as the arguments for not buying homeless people free stuff), but as long as cashless can be used to disenfranchise lower income people, I'm opposed to it.

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>"they come in here and get a drink and use that to stay all day."

Not wanting this behavior is absolutely reasonable, but what I'd find suspicious and don't understand is why cashless would be the method. I know of plenty of places that have policies along the lines of "during regular hours 15 minutes per drink, 40 with drink & food" or whatever is appropriate to the location. It's private property though a public business, and they can set non-discriminatory customer neutral policies for free use, particularly around interfering with other customers. It also doesn't seem like it'd be at all a class thing, I know lots of cafes around here have had issues sometimes with someone coming in and getting a single coffee then pulling out their high end notebook and using a table as a free internet accessible office for an hour or two. They are not even slightly poor, they've got credit cards and smartphones, they're just rude.

But the result was just that businesses instituted policies and simply ask such people to leave if it seems to be deterring other customers, and that also seems like the obvious general solution. I'm honestly curious about why in Palo Alto that wouldn't be true too, is there some local law/ordinance that prohibits asking a customer to leave or the like? If there is no such thing it does seem more likely they were just lying, and the real truth was that they want customers who meet some specific level of dress code and also don't want to be honest about it (for legal reasons or just plain PR or both).

There are plenty of real reasons for a business to want to take the hit to go cashless (managing significant amounts of physical cash is a genuine expense, and in some places raises the attractiveness for robbery too). This really doesn't seem like one of them though.

Paying for a coffee and sitting in a cafe for an hour is rude? I try to be conscious of being a responsible customer by this is completely normal and reasonable in the majority of cafes I'll frequent, like Philz in Palo Alto, or any Starbucks anywhere.

An hour seems fairly reasonable. I've seen groups of four people doing business meetings at coffee shops. Where I've heard staff complain is when someone buys a coffee and then stays for 4+ hours on a regular basis in a high traffic shop (like near the touristic cable car stops in SF).

I imagine it is just hard and annoying to try to enforce a time limit. You don't want your cashiers and baristas to have to keep track of how long each person has been sitting at a table. Plus, your cashiers may not be comfortable asking a homeless person to leave the establishment since it could lead to a confrontation.

On top of that, I could totally see a time limit rule being implemented poorly. The well-to-do looking businessman probably never gets asked to leave, while the young non-white person gets asked to leave...

I'm not saying cash-less is a good system, just saying the other policies have their issues as well.

> what I'd find suspicious and don't understand is why cashless would be the method.

It eliminates the confrontation at the end of the 15/40 minute grace limit.

This is disgusting. Here's a completely opposite example of a restaurant that is not run by discrimination: https://dc.eater.com/2017/2/17/14635410/kazi-mannan-mayur-ka...

It's "disgusting" to want to maintain standards in an restaurant?

I mean, to put it bluntly, yes.

You might not be disgusted, that is your right. It is their right to be disgusted.

If you're looking for an argument why one should be disgusted, one cannot be forthcoming. I cannot give you a very persuasive argument why you should be sympathetic to the personal circumstances that the homeless find themselves in. That sort of sympathy is kinda just its own purpose or its own end; if you lack it then there is very little I can tell you that would definitively convince you of its merit. Like I can BS with fallacies all the day long about how this sort of empathy was important to our species in premodern times and continues to be important in modern times, but the fallacy will remain that simply because that disposition exists in a collective historical interest, that does not mean it is in your particular individual interest.

You're saying it's impossible to believe in helping the homeless while also believing there exist restaurants they shouldn't be in in their current state?

Because that feels like a false dichotomy.

Do you also think that if someone has the right to view pornography, they have the right to do it everywhere?

Do you think that if violent child molester deserves a right to a job, that should include the right to working at a day care center? And if someone thinks that's not a job they should get, they must lack empathy?

Those feel like unwarranted inferences, intended more for emotional appeal than constructive engagement.

I never would say something is impossible to believe unless it were a logical contradiction, and even then I wouldn't be 100% sure in saying it. People believe all sorts of things.

I’m just saying that people have a right to be disgusted by the store’s reasoning. I did not say anything that could be construed as supporting violent child molesters and the fact that you think I did says much more about you than me.

Your comment is bluster in search of a fight. I don’t have one to give you. You were just wrong. Tomorrow’s another day.

When those "standards" are built around excluding certain groups of people, yes.

I'm sure they would try to turn away any middle class homeowner who hasn't bathed in months as well.

I think it's reasonable to have some sanitation and pleasentness standards in a restaurant. Anyone from any economic class could meet or not meet those standards. It may be harder for a homeless person to stay relatively well kept, but I don't think that is the responsibility of the restaurants to fix. We should reduce the people living in filth, not accept and encourage filth I'm public spaces.

Who said this person hasn't bathed in months? I have to challenge your claim of it being fine to want "pleasantness" or "standards" in a public space. 60 years ago, pre civil rights, this "pleasantness" meant not being black, which is ridiculous. "Filth" is also very much culturally shaped ... it sounds like you are saying homelessness == filth && unhealthy && public menace, which is very problematic.

edit: also, the no-cash policy does not filter against the "middle class home owner who hasn't bathed in months", so that does not hold.

That's what price and classiness does, doesn't it? Isn't price the ultimate barrier? Isn't that why Facebook and friends are so effective, because they want to subsidize everything?

More interesting would be to get a business license you must supply services to different tiers of pricing access.

Behavior, not people.

Is a policy which discriminates against cash usage the best way to screen against the "behavior" of being dirty/smelly? Why not just ask him to leave if he loiters too long?

Instead, this policy clearly screens against a group of PEOPLE (those without access to electronic means of payment), which may or may not overlap with those participating in the undesirable "behaviors" I agree a restaurant should have the right to not tolerate.

Why would you purposefully rephrase the story to include only one side? It's still there, right above your post.

I am very shocked. I really like Joe & the Juice. This story warrants a boycott, if it is credible.

I had a somewhat similar experience in Williamsburg, New York last summer.

There’s a Sweetgreen chain restaurant in the neighborhood. Being in there always fires off a bit of liberal white guilt, as there are few African Americans in the neighborhood (a Brooklyn outlier), but nearly everyone employed there is. It's the most visible marker of segregation here.

Three black women were ahead of me in line. They have their lunches made to order, get to the register, and are told they cannot pay with cash. None of these three adult women had a credit card or debit card with them.

I immediately offered to accept their cash and put their lunches on my card with my own order. Two of the women were very grateful, the third vacillated between visible embarrassment that some white guy had to come in and rescue her, and anger at the restaurant.

Make no mistake about it: cash-only policies hurt lower income and minority people. Even after this experience I was still sort of on the fence about it, but having mentally reviewed this episode and spelled it out here, I don't think I can continue in good conscience to shop at establishments like this anymore.

Wow, that is an absolutely disgusting justification for that policy. What's next, a button that raises spikes on cafe chairs if you pay with cash?

What is disgusting about it? I don’t know anyone who would want to patronize a business that reeks of body odor and full of possibly mentally ill people.

We want private businesses to deal with the homeless and mentally ill, but I’d like to see all these white collar offices open themselves up so the homeless can come hang out.

I went to Seattle’s downtown public library once, beautiful building and I would have loved to explore, but I had to leave due to the overwhelming stench of all the homeless people.

> What is disgusting about it?

Because it subjects real people to petty indignities for no good reason.

> I went to Seattle’s downtown public library once, beautiful building and I would have loved to explore, but I had to leave due to the overwhelming stench of all the homeless people.

Some people used to think just like that about black people, so they wrote laws and put up signs to exclude them [1]. The people at Joe & the Juice that the GGP describe are the same, but they just have to be more subtle about it.

[1] https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm

I think a better solution would be to provide fresh clothes / showers to homeless people, not force cafes to allow people who absolutely stink in.

Where I live, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan (affluenza patients everywhere), there is a full-service laundrymat that offers free cleaning if you have a job interview. It's where I always take my dry cleaning.

Someone’s foul odor and possible mental illness affects others negatively, the color of someone’s skin does not. They are not comparable at all.

I’m all for helping people, it just shouldn’t be the job of private businesses, especially when it’s costing them other business. Let’s build facilities to treat the mentally ill and help addicts, let’s help the homeless who have hit hard times. Let’s not make it the job of hotels and cafes and libraries to host them and play the “discrimination, but not discrimination” game.

> Someone’s foul odor and possible mental illness affects others negatively, the color of someone’s skin does not. They are not comparable at all.

To be perfectly frank: that justification stinks of rationalization. I'm sure that the people who put up those signs I linked also felt that the presence of black customers would have affected them negatively.

> Let’s build facilities to treat the mentally ill and help addicts, let’s help the homeless who have hit hard times.

Those laws I mentioned previously had something to say about limiting black people to special facilities built especially for them, and excluding them from facilities built for whites [1].

> Let’s not make it the job of...libraries to host them and play the “discrimination, but not discrimination” game.

Are you serious? Libraries are public institutions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_Unit...

Particles landing on someone’s olfactory nerves causing chemical reactions that inform the person that they should be repulsed is not the same as a person “feeling” that someone with different color skin negatively affects them.

Libraries are for learning, community events, tutoring, many things, but having homeless people stink up the place ruins it for everyone. I don’t understand how someone can argue that society should let a group of people ruin it for everyone. It’s the same as someone walking in with speakers and blasting loud music in a library.

> I don’t understand how someone can argue that society should let a group of people ruin it for everyone.

I don't understand how someone can make sweeping generalizations about an entire group of people, and argue that they should be excluded from "learning, community events, tutoring, many things" because of ignorant stereotyping

>It’s the same as someone walking in with speakers and blasting loud music in a library

It really isn't at all. People don't walk around blasting loud music because they don't have access to proper facilities and products to care for themselves at the same level that you are able to.

It's notable that you keep returning to strong body odor again and again. While I'm sure you can find an examples of homeless people like that, and it's likely that homeless people as a population have more body odor problems, superhuman body odor is hardly a universal quality of the homeless.

The root comment made no mention of body odor, let alone body odor so bad that it would affect other customers. It also referenced a region where the rent is so damn high that people have been driven out of stable housing and are forced to live in campers on the street [1]. It only described a situation were a business was trying to keep "those people" out.

It seems pretty clear to me that you're engaging in negative stereotyping to justify your prejudices. Thank you for the education, it's rare in my life that I see such attitudes so openly displayed.

[1] https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/03/08/council-rejects-res...

Are you asserting not having a credit card means you smell and are possibly crazy?

>reeks of body odor and full of possibly mentally ill people

Why are you repeatedly implying that homeless people reek of body odor and are mentally ill when the original comment made no mention of either? It sounds a lot like the kind of excuses made about black people, jewish people, and other groups that have been stereotyped and dehumanized in order to justify poor treatment and cruelty. There are plenty of homeless people that are not mentally ill, and strive to maintain their hygiene despite not having access to the same facilities products that people take for granted. People seem to be able to get away with talking extremely poorly about homeless people, and yet if you replaced homeless with a particular race/religious group/etc you would likely be called a bigot. It sounds like you've never experienced homelessness or had family/friends that have been homeless, and your comments are ignorant and show a complete lack of empathy.

https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their...

Reminds me of this art exhibit: http://i.imgur.com/tgKix5d.png

Please don't give them ideas.

They ultimately disenfranchise people far less than the real issue, which is high prices and financial disparity in society. What would it even mean to improve access by allowing cash but still having an entire stratum of society inaccessible through high prices? Money is the ultimate accessibility issue, which is why Facebook and friends are racing to subsidize everything with ads.

I'm more worried about the loss of privacy in a new fully accounted world without cash.

I know the classic argument against giving homeless people money, but what's the argument for not buying them food? They'll stay lazy" and not "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" (which physics shows is actually impossible)?

The store's reasoning in this anecdote isn't that they don't believe homeless people shouldn't have their drinks; it's that they don't want homeless people to spend time in their cafe. If they have drinks, they'll spend time in the cafe.

They're wielding a "cashless" policy here much in the same way states used to use things like literacy tests and poll taxes[1] as ways to disenfranchise minority voters.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_St...

I mean if you're curious there actually is a good argument for not buying the homeless food, and it has to do with a sort of "market saturation." Talking to some homeless people and some formerly-homeless people, my understanding is that they know at this point where they can go to get a hot meal, and they take full advantage of those sorts of help.

By contrast what is missing includes reliable sources of clean drinking water, reliable sources of quarters and possibly detergent that could be used to do laundry, reliable sources of personal-needs products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, dish soap, changes of underwear/socks since those are less-often donated to clothing distribution locations.

Indeed the argument against giving the homeless money seems to me a little strange, since it inherently places them in a distrusted role over their decisions about themselves and emphasizes your control over someone else. It's not that the argument has no merit—it still has some. But in many regards the argument is limited, simply because wisdom cannot be imposed on someone from outside but must be learned and chosen from within: if I create a sandbox for the homeless where they can only do the activities that I approve of, I might get them out of homelessness—but am I really sure that then when I send them back into the world they will fare better? Put another way, how many people go through drug rehab and then relapse? Giving someone money and saying “I don’t know if you are going to spend this on booze tonight but I trust that if you keep having opportunities like this eventually you will learn that its more wise to spend it on your laundry” may be worse overall—but it's not clear that it’s worse in the long run by a substantial margin.

I heavily prefer cashless stores. For me it's all about the convenience. Also I am better able to track my purchases and spending habits. Additionally, I like eat in a clean environment if I can. I don't want to eat where it stinks to the high heavens or is dirty. It is a preference. There is nothing stopping homeless people from going cashless by simply buying a AMX card at walgreens with cash already on it.

How is a cashless store more convenient and help you better track your purchase, compared with a store that accepts both cash and cards? You're setting up a false cashless vs cardless dichotomy.

> Additionally, I like eat in a clean environment if I can. I don't want to eat where it stinks to the high heavens or is dirty. It is a preference. There is nothing stopping homeless people from going cashless by simply buying a AMX card at walgreens with cash already on it.

These two arguments are at odds. Cash is not what makes stores stink or get dirty; what you're saying is that you prefer stores without people you associate with stink, ie., homeless. But if the homeless could "simply" get a card, cashless stores wouldn't have that advantage.

And the reality is that they can't; prepaid cards have monthly fees, which are only waived in certain cases (e.g. have a monthly direct deposit of over $500).

> Cash is not what makes stores stink or get dirty; what you're saying is that you prefer stores without people you associate with stink, ie., homeless. But if the homeless could "simply" get a card, cashless stores wouldn't have that advantage.

You are reading more into what I stated than what is there. I'm saying I don't care if someone is homeless or not. If they stink in a restaurant or coffee shop I don't want to eat there. That's all I said. I did not link it to the store being cashless or not. You added that in yourself.

Then I simply offered up an alternative to get around the cashless rules. Someone collecting a monthly fee from the cards does not matter as much if it's just going to be spent within the month anyway.

Many businesses have cashless as a theft prevention measure. It's only mildly more difficult for people to do transactions there if it's more difficult at all. When I was poor I preferred cashless. Nothing has changed since I'm less poor now than I was before. With cards I have recourse. With cash I have zero recourse if something is stolen or there is fraud.

"going cashless" is a form of class warfare.

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