My GM told me tonight it is against the law for restaurants to add an automatic gratuity to any guest check. I have worked in the industry for the past seven years and every place I've been at before this one has added some sort of automatic gratuity to any party over X amount or more. What can I do?
I have also looked into this said law. She had mentioned it's been in law since 2014 that restaurants can be fined $20,000 for automatic gratuities. I have not found any sort of proof whatsoever. I'm in Michigan and work in Detroit if that helps for any sort of actual advice on what to do about this.
I feel it is important to add that we have event spaces and whoever is renting out the space is expected to pay a 21% service fee for said event. Most times guests renting the event space assumes that “service charge” is going towards their server(s) “tip”. It does not. Nobody knows where that “service charge” fee for events goes.