Tips on tipping - deductions help

From the Morning Call:


Tips on tipping - deductions help


November 25, 2009

According to Brand X, Bethlehem police handcuffed two local college students and hauled them away because they did not give a tip to a Bethlehem waitress after she let them cool their heels for long periods while she went outside to smoke.

The two were in a party of eight who balked at a mandatory gratuity (a transcendent oxymoron) of $16.35 on top of a total tab of $73.87, it was reported last week by The Express-Times, a newspaper based in Easton. (I said ''Brand X'' because I could not bear to give credit to a competing paper in the very first paragraph.)

Last week's story indicated that the Lehigh Pub's menu stipulated there was an 18 percent tip charged for a large group, but 18 percent of $73.87 is only $13.30, not $16.35. There was no indication that the city police busted any restaurant people for trying to swipe an extra $3.05.

Instead, Lehigh Pub customers Leslie Pope, 22, a student at Moravian College, and John Wagner, 24, a student at Lehigh University, were charged with theft of services for failing to pay the bloated tip.

In addition to letting Pope, Wagner and their companions go hungry and thirsty while she smoked, last week's story said, the waitress made them wait for more than an hour for their salads and wings, and they were forced to go get their own drinks at the bar and to fetch their own napkins and silverware.

I had missed the story in the Express-Times, but when Dan Kilpatrick of Salisbury Township called to voice support for a Boy Scout I discussed in my column, he added some thoughts on the tipping flap.

''As a patron, it [tipping] is the only way you can have any control over the kind of service you get,'' he said. (Perhaps Kilpatrick brought that up because he remembered the harsh views I have expressed in previous columns about tipping.)

Since then, I have heard from others. Joseph Rospetti of Macungie said he saw that CBS and other news organizations had picked up the Express-Times story and were putting it on the Internet, and he asked me to look into it.

''Did I miss this story in The Morning Call?'' asked one man, whose identity I could not verify but who said he saw the story in a Chicago publication.

Fortunately, I now can rely on my favorite news outfit in the whole world for the latest poop on the tipping imbroglio.

The charges against Pope and Wagner, it was reported Tuesday on the front page of The Morning Call, are being dropped.

''It would not be the kind of case that should be processed criminally,'' Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli was quoted as saying.

He indicated that if the people at Lehigh Pub want to go after anybody for that $16.35, or $13.30, or whatever, they will have to sic their lawyers on customers in civil court. If that happens, and if I find out about it in time, I promise to show up in court and let you know how it goes.

My own tipping practices, as I first discussed in this space years ago, are set forth by the Ginza Society, which I founded in 2002 because of my experiences with the superb waitresses in Tokyo's Ginza section, where zero tipping was customary.

Bad service should result in little or no tip at all, even in America, and I deduct 1 percent of my standard 20 percent tip for every item that is below par. (I used to think 15 percent was an acceptable starting point, but one of my daughters said that made me a boorish cheapskate.)

I do not deduct for bad food; that's not the fault of the waitress/waiter. Most of my deductions are for getting the order wrong or making me wait too long, especially when I need another drink or it's time to process the check. Anyway, there have been times I left only a quarter.

There is one other tipping practice that is not always a big hit with my wife. When service is exceptional, I go over the 20 percent mark, although I often tell her I'm doing it because I think a waitress is cute.

As for mandatory tipping for groups, you should immediately run for the door if you see that on a menu or in a sign. Any restaurant that tries to impose forced tipping without such a notification should be closed down and forced to pay for its entire staff to get a year of training in Tokyo.

Finally, there is one new rule I am adding to my Ginza Society handbook. It says that if we find out waiters and waitresses pool their tips and then share the money equally, there must be no tip at all. Pooling totally defeats the purpose of tipping, which should reflect how well a customer feels an individual has done his or her job. If it does not matter how an individual performs, a gratuity is meaningless.

To help us impose that rule, any restaurant that allows the pooling and sharing of tips should be required by law to put up a large sign to that effect, with penalties of up to a year in prison for any violations whatsoever -- and then we'll see how well the Bethlehem police enforce that.

paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176

Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

If it does not matter how an individual performs, a gratuity is meaningless.