N.S. Caps Fees For Delivery Services Like Skip The Dishes
HALIFAX – The restaurant industry is applauding some major changes to rules and regulations made by the Nova Scotia government. One of the biggest rule changes will have a significant impact on third-party delivery services like Skip the Dishes, Uber Eats, and DoorDash.
For the past year, restaurants have had to use these services during lockdowns in order to get their food to customers. However, small restaurant owners were frustrated with being charged up to 30 percent by these big delivery companies, which made it difficult to turn a profit.
On May 26, the Rankin government used the emergency management order to cap the fees at 15 percent for delivery and 10 percent for pickup. It’s something restaurant leaders like Luc Erjavec have been asking for since the start of the pandemic.
“It puts money back into the pockets of restaurant owners and it also has some protections that these companies can’t deduct from the wages of their employees,” said Luc Erjavec, Restaurant Canada’s vice president for the Atlantic region. “So, I think that is huge, in terms of thousands of dollars.”
The high delivery charges have been a bone of contention for restaurant owners across Canada ever since the pandemic forced small restaurants to offer delivery services. One Halifax restaurant owner even cofounded HaliHub, a Halifax-based delivery service with much lower fees than the bigger companies.
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But the capping of fees wasn’t the only major overhaul made by the provincial government. Restaurants can now sell more alcohol products through delivery and take-out, such as spirits and cocktails containing no more than 3 percent alcohol.
There were also several changes made to put fewer restrictions on establishments with lounge licenses. People 18 or younger, who are accompanied by an adult, can now stay in lounges until 10 pm, without having to order a meal.
This is significant, says Erjavec, because families with teenagers were often dissuaded from coming to lounges in the evening when they had to leave by 9 pm. Also, restaurants no longer have to persuade someone under the age of 19 from buying a meal, just so they could stay.
“You’d be going with your family at 8 o’clock at night, and wanted to have a meal, and the owner would have to say, ‘I don’t think we can serve you by 9 pm,” said Erjavec.
The new rules will also expand the workforce for establishments with lounge licenses. People under the age of 19 can now work in these places until 10 pm, so long as they don’t serve alcohol. This will allow people 18 and younger to become wait staff, hosts, and bussers. Erjavec says it can often be difficult to find enough staff in the busy summer months, so opening up the age group will be a big help.
Some of the other changes include allowing bars and restaurants to offer more samples to customers, and a “cabaret class B” license will be created for businesses that only serve drinking-age patrons – without requiring the establishments to have a kitchen on site.
Erjavec gave a lot of credit to Premier Iain Rankin for pushing the changes through. Prior to him taking over, Erjavec says they were given excuses why changes couldn’t be made to help restaurants.
“The answers we were always getting were, ‘it can’t be done’,” said Erjavec. “And full credit to Premier Rankin…it can help the industry and he made it happen.”
“It’s something we’ve been pushing for a long time and Premier Rankin was really in-tune with the plight of the restaurant industry, he took solid steps and deserves lots of credit.”