Restaurant, bar owners welcome B.C.'s plan to permanently cap food-delivery fees

Restaurant and bar owners in B.C. — who are facing ongoing economic challenges like inflation and supply chain disruptions — are breathing a small sigh of relief after the province introduced legislation to permanently cap the fees charged by food delivery companies like Skip the Dishes and Uber Eats.

In December 2020 the province introduced temporary fee caps, after COVID-19 restrictions forced much of the restaurant industry to pivot to take-out and delivery services and fees as high as 30 per cent were being charged to restaurants. 

Last week, the B.C. government introduced legislation to continue the policy permanently and limit companies to a 20 per cent charge per order, combining the two separate caps of 15 and five per cent enforced right now. If passed, companies will also be prohibited from reducing driver pay to make up for the fee cap.

"As the costs of food and labour rise worldwide, B.C. restaurants need to be supported to ensure prices are affordable and that delivery companies aren't charging unfair fees," Ravi Kahlon, minister of jobs, said in a written statement on Thursday.

Solomon Siegel, who co-owns Pagliacci's Restaurant in Victoria, says he welcomes the new legislation but it's still important for restaurants to negotiate delivery fees that work for them. 

"It's extra revenue stream, which is so important ... and it's visibility and it's kind of the way the game is played now, so you need to do it, but the key is in negotiating the delivery fee," Siegel said Tuesday on CBC's On the Island.

He said the demand for take-out has increased so much so that he's had to hire extra staff to accommodate the amount of delivery orders. 

"We can't even necessarily keep up with the volume that we do from one app, so we only use Uber right now," he said.

Troy Barnaby, who owns and operates Sult Pierogi Bar, says the new legislation will help restaurant owners work in partnership with delivery apps.

"With COVID, third party delivery apps basically became a dependency that you had to have in order to survive ... in which case, puts a lot of power into their hands because they have the upper hand," said Barnaby.

"We don't want to be gouged or taken advantage of."

CBC News has reached out to Skip the Dishes and Uber for comment but did not receive a response back from them in time for publishing.

The temporary fee caps, which were extended in September and December 2021, are set to expire on Dec. 31.