New law requires restaurants to warn you about fees

Restaurants will have to make clear to customers upfront when they will be hit with automatic tips or service fees, under a bill signed Monday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

While the primary focus of the bill involved the removal of non-paying guests from hotels, the measure (SB 606) also will require notifications from “public food service establishments that charge an operations charge,” which is an automatic fee other than a tax.

The law, which will take effect July 1, requires notices of fees on menus, websites or mobile apps where orders are placed.

Many restaurants already impose automatic tips or service charges for large parties. But the issue was pushed in the Legislature after Rep. Demi Busatta, a Coral Gables Republican who grew up in the restaurant industry, told a House panel in March that she had received a restaurant bill that had a service fee and a pre-set gratuity, along with a line to include a tip.

“In Miami, we’ve seen a growing circumstance where all the restaurants are automatically including a 20% gratuity, or they’re calling it gratuity or service charge or service fee or tip, not just on regular sitdown meals but on take-out as well at fast-casual establishments,” Busatta said at the time.

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For restaurants that don’t provide menus or such things as table service, the bill says notices “must appear in an obvious and clearly readable manner on the menu board or on an obvious and clearly readable sign by the register where the customer pays.”