Editor:
Re: Burnaby restaurant owners terrified of food delivery caps being lifted, NOW News
What’s important to remember is my work has value too.
The recent article in this outlet isn’t the first I’ve seen where restaurant owners have shared their concerns about the government of British Columbia removing the cap on third-party delivery.
As I read more and more about the demands for longer or permanent fee caps, I can’t stay quiet about the importance of the work I do and the impact of these fees on my earnings. Many of the restaurants I deliver for have never had delivery before app-based delivery.
Why? Because it’s costly.
To have staff drive around the city keeping meals hot and delivering them in a timely manner isn’t free. And apps like the ones I drive for have filled this gap, providing a service that kept many restaurant kitchens open and able to provide delivery when the pandemic kept their doors closed.
The fees that are paid to these apps go towards paying delivery people like me, go towards paying the support staff that work on the app, the advertising that shows customers these restaurants, the credit card processing fees - I could go on.
And as these companies said in the article, maintaining these caps is not possible. If these commission caps remain, then the companies will need to put fees on consumers to pay for these important services. That means customers placing fewer orders, which means less money in my pocket.
So when we talk about the importance of building back after this pandemic, I want to remind everyone reading this that the work I do every day is supporting restaurants. And maintaining these caps will hurt my earnings. Instead, B.C. policymakers should find ways to support restaurants in a way that won’t hurt me, or the apps that have helped so many.
Ken Chan, Burnaby
