Effective Saturday, October 3, 2020, Millbrae restaurants will pay no more than 15% of purchase orders to third-party food delivery platforms such as UberEats, DoorDash and Grubhub.
The Millbrae City Council passed the urgency ordinance because of the current hardships local restaurants are facing due to COVID-19 health orders, and taking into account that a greater percentage of their sales are from these online food delivery services.
Since late July, San Mateo County has been on the California Department of Health’s watch list of counties that are being monitored for worsening COVID-19 trends. This has resulted in further restrictions on business re-openings, and has forced restaurants to rely on food delivery services to stay in business.
Through their service agreements, third-party platforms charge restaurants up to 30% of the purchase price per order.
Through the urgency ordinance:
1) A third-party food delivery service may not charge a covered establishment a fee per online order for the use of its services that totals more than 15% of the purchase price of such online order where the order is delivered to the customer.
2) A third-party food delivery service may not charge a covered establishment a fee per online order for the use of its services that totals more than 10% of the purchase price of such online order where the order is not delivered to the customer.
3) A third-party food delivery service may not charge a customer any purchase price for a food or beverage item that is higher than the price set by the covered establishment on the third-party food delivery service or, if no price is set by the covered establishment on the third-party food delivery service, the price listed on the covered establishment’s own menu.
4) A third-party food delivery service may not reduce the compensation rates paid to the delivery service driver or retain any portion of amounts designated as a tip or gratuity as a result of this Ordinance. The third-party delivery service must pay any tip or gratuity, in its entirety, to the person delivering the food or beverages.
This urgency ordinance is temporary and will expire 30 calendar days after the expiration of the COVID-19 emergency.
To read the entire ordinance, please visit: https://portal.laserfiche.com/