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Comment by pxx | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you have an operating understanding of legal tender. No widely-applicable law in Canada or the US requires businesses to accept bank notes to settle a transaction. See e.g. https://globalnews.ca/news/6878824/legal-for-businesses-to-r... and https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm . Some municipalities and states have added laws requiring cash acceptance, but it's not as simple as "it's legal tender" or "you can do it in Canada."

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I think the sentiment is understandable if the terminology isn't precise. Don't charge fees for non-optional things. Especially don't charge a fee to pay the posted price.

Just an example of a large municipality doing this: In NYC food establishments must accept cash as of November 2020

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-york-city-cash-law-...

I missed that this happened, that's great news. When I saw a few places get away with no longer accepting cash "for the convenience of our customers and the security of our staff," I figured that it was only a matter of time until everywhere else that wasn't doing light tax fraud followed suit.

Tangentially, I'm also pleasantly surprised how easy it still is to buy a physical MetroCard. My understanding a few years back was that contactless payment would be the default by now and if I wanted to buy a physical MetroCard, I'd no longer be able to do that at stations but I would instead need to go to "select retail partners" to do so.

As a consumer, this is great.

As a guy who used to have to take a zipper bag full of cash to the office safe every night, the convenience of the customer part may be laughable but the safety of the staff part isn't. Offhand I can't think of a more effective way to bring back 1990s mugging culture.

There's a difference between the letter of the law and the word of the law. Having experienced both places I can say there is a difference in how things are run and regulated and if they call it legal tender or whatever it doesn't matter. As a customer it does matter because I end up paying the junk fees so please don't patronize me for saying it.

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