A restaurant in Schenectady is the inspiration behind new legislation introduced by Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara.
Bashir Chedrawee, co-owner of the Mediterranean-inspired eatery Simone’s Kitchen in Schenectady splits tips among all of his employees: kitchen staff, customer-service leads, front-of-house workers.
Chedrawee says since his employees work as a team, everyone –excluding the owners – should be entitled to tips.
“Counter service, or fast-casual, that’s what you would call the format that we have where people come up, they order in line and they go through and they watch you make their meal and fast-casual is really a collaborative process,” he said.
However, Chedrawee recently had to change his Jay Street business’s tipping model after a visit by a New York State Department of Labor representative.
“When she came in, she was very respectful and requested a whole bunch of documentation that we freely handed over, she audited all of our information and her findings were essentially that moving forward this is how your tips need to be done,” Chedrawee said.
So, in addition to changing the way he disperses tips after the visit, the restaurant owner also approached Democratic Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara for help.
Now, Santabarbara has introduced legislation crafted to help restaurants like Simone’s. The proposal would give fast-casual restaurants the option to implement equitable tip pooling policies.
“What we want to do is make it clear that they can legally do this, can share the tips, pool the tips at the end of the day,” Santabarbara said.
Santabarbara’s legislation would create a distinction between the traditional sit-in and counter service restaurants. It would allow counter service restaurants to share tips with their entire staff.
“It’s a gray area that really needs to be defined, it needs to be split off to separate these restaurants from traditional sit-down restaurants,” Santabarbara said.
Kevin Dugan is the Director of Government Affairs for the New York State Restaurant Association.
Dugan says current law has strict rules about who and who cannot accept tips.
“Those rules state that to be eligible to receive tips at a restaurant, 80 percent of your work has to be customer facing. For shorthand, it’s called the 80-20 rule,” Dugan said.
The director says the other 20 percent is referred to as side work. That definition can include everything from rolling silverware to setting tables.
Dugan says many restaurants he works with as a part of NYSRA are puzzled by the rules.
“I get these questions all the time,” Dugan said.
He says the laws should be updated to match the ever-evolving definition of what it means to be a restaurant.
“Do there need to be changes? To accommodate these new types of restaurants there do need to be some changes, I think, in terms of if they’re treated the same way as full-service restaurants and who’s eligible for tips and who’s not eligible for tips,” Dugan said.
As for Chedrawee, he says he knows of more restaurants in the Capital Region who are supporting Santabarbara’s legislation.
“I don’t want to put any restaurant names out there because they are there, they are supportive and they’ll come out and show their support when they are ready,” Chedrawee said.
For now, Chedrawee questions just how many counter-service restaurants are in compliance with the law.
“I hesitate to believe that anybody is fully compliant,” Chedrawee said.
