They won't be able to charge more than 15% of the cost of the food order.

Many people have been relying on take-out during the pandemic for a safe way to get food, but also using it as a way to support local restaurants. I've heard this countless times from people that when they rely on a third party delivery service to bring them their order, the fees increase the order tremendously.

Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro recently signed an executive order to temporarily cap these fees. According to the the government website, this says these third party delivery companies will not be able to charge more than 15% of the cost of the food order. There is also another part of this, it does not allow these delivery services to put restaurants' menus on the services apps and increase the price that is given and have the delivery fee included in it.

More specifically, Molinaro said,

"These apps are vital for restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they are more reliant than ever on takeout and delivery orders. However, fee structures used by these companies, which can be as much as 30 percent for delivery orders, are cutting into local restaurants’ profits during this time of hardship for the entire food services and hospitality industry."

From November 2019 to November 2020 the leisure and hospitality industry dipped by more than 25% in Dutchess-Putnam Counties, this is a pretty big drop for our area. It also said a lot of place have seen sales down as low as 30%, hopefully this order will help bring a little more relief to some local restaurants.

 

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