If Cash Is King, How Can Stores Refuse To Take Your Dollars?
By Jay L. Zagorsky, The Ohio State University
ActivistPost.com
AUGUST 5, 2016
We’ve been talking about society’s transition to a cashless society for a long time, but it begs an important question: Can stores and other retail establishments refuse to take your dollars and cents?
As odd as it sounds, this is not hypothetical anymore as a small number of stores and industries have stopped accepting cash and allow payment only by credit card, debit card or via a smartphone app.
Sweetgreen, a high-end salad restaurant, stopped accepting cash in its New York City stores in January. A Boston restaurant near Fenway Park went cashless this past December. Most airlines stopped taking cash for in-flight purchases of food and beverages around 2010.
While the trend of smaller stores refusing to accept credit cards because of the high fees is more well-established, the opposite trend of refusing to take cash hasn’t been as well-explored. Let’s examine why they do it and if they can get away with it.
Legal tender?
Businesses claim that not accepting cash reduces the chance of stores being robbed, eliminates the temptation for employees to steal money, eliminates the time needed for workers to travel to and from the bank and even reduces expenses by dispensing with the need for bulky cash registers.
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