“I can tell you that the people that are doing it aren’t the people who are coming here because they’re looking for a sandwich because they’re hungry,” said Ravi Ramberran, “It’s the people who are not afraid of consequences period.”
In the wake of the increase in dine and dashers, Ramberran said his restaurant has ramped up how they deal with it.
“We blast them on Facebook, we hold them, we make them wait for the cops…We do what’s in our power to do.”
From the actual post.
“I can tell you that the people that are doing it aren’t the people who are coming here because they’re looking for a sandwich because they’re hungry,”
Thing is, you’re not wrong either. The cost of living crisis does have victims, but the sort of people doing dine and dash are rarely those victims.
If anything they make it worse for people on low income jobs like waiting staff. Dine and dash is like the opposite of leaving a tip. It’s like reaching into an underpaid service workers pocket and pulling the money out.
It’s tricky, especially if we want to stay non-judgemental, but there does seem to be a difference between people trying to steal bread and flour from a supermarket and folk sitting down to a three course and running without paying, and I suspect that difference might be one of class and privilege rather than not.
It does feel like we’re in a spiral of degeneration of the social contract. Of course that feeling, if it isn’t just an internet bubble thing, would be both symptom and cause so observe it with caution and distrust any who claim it exists.