Dine and dash: Who covers the cost?

Covering costs of dining dashing Sarah Plowman on how not every restaurant covers the losses from dining and dashing in the same way.

The rules around who pays for dine and dashes aren’t in stone and they aren’t always clear, but they are often costly.

Restaurants can require employees to pay for dine and dashes, as long as that money doesn’t come from wages.

Jay Short, manager of Special Investigations for Employment Standards said the province has received a lot of calls asking for clarification. These calls come after the owner of Kum Koon Garden told the media his employees must pay the bill if customers don’t; reports which came after staff at his Chinese food restaurant was accused of telling an indigenous couple they have to pay for their food before they are served.

“You could never, in a work place, deduct any shortages, including the dine and dash situation from an employee’s wages,” Short said. However, Short said any restaurant can legally pull money from tips, as long as workers are making minimum wage.

When two people ran away without paying at Teo’s Restaurant on Corydon Sunday night, Charles Garcia, the general manager, decided the restaurant would cover the cost. He said his team decides on a case by case basis, but he would never force a worker to pay up.

“I've been at restaurants where the restaurant covers it and I've been at places where the server takes care of it," Garcia said,

At some restaurants, staff pool together $1 to $2 each shift so when a dine and dash occurs, money is taken from that. If money is leftover at the end of the month, they’ll throw a staff party.

“Quite frequently there's a pool of tips that the employer would often use to not only cover things like dine and dashes but to try and pay servers plus kitchen staff and other places in the work place,” Short said, pointing out that this process is legal.

Some in the restaurant and bar industry don’t believe taking from tips is fair. Tim Roth is now the manager of Toad in the hole on Osborne Street. He said when he started in the industry, he was forced to foot the bill when a dine and dash happened on his watch and he doesn’t agree with it.

"It was a small dine and dash and I ended up paying for it out of my tips,” Roth said, “I didn't know any better."

Garcia believes the onus is on the server to take care of their table, but ultimately, it’s the responsibility of the customer to pay up.

“Obviously it's not anyone's fault other than the people running who are not wanting to pay their bill,” Garcia said.