LA City Council’s 15 Percent Food Delivery Fee Cap Is About to Take Effect

The Los Angeles City Council yesterday voted to formally approve a third-party food delivery app fee cap, meaning companies like Uber Eats, DoorDash, GrubHub, and Postmates will be limited in how much they can charge restaurants for their services. The issue was raised by the council last month after cities like San Francisco voted on their own caps, a move meant to keep these tech companies from gouging restaurants during a global pandemic, when delivery and takeout services have largely been the only forms of income for restaurant owners possible.

The new Los Angeles ordinance caps fees at 15 percent of the total sale for any delivery, and also mandates that third-party delivery app companies cannot take more than five percent for all other non-delivery charges. The ordinance will now be sent to the mayor’s office to be signed and put into effect immediately.

And in other news:

— Sightglass in Los Angeles is donating 100 percent of this weekend’s sales to the ACLU and ActBlue as support for the ongoing protests nationwide.

— The LA Times has added its voice to the growing call for street vendors to be allowed to participate in the mayor’s LA Alfresco outdoor dining plan. Writer Lucas Kwan Peterson says that the city’s overall reopening plan “is leaving our street vendors in the dark.”

— Don Francisco’s Coffee Casa Cubana inside of the Spring Arcade has closed permanently. The cheery shop opened in 2017, but ownership says on their website that “after much consideration” they are moving on from the space.

— Hotville Chicken was profiled in Inc. this week, with Kim Prince telling the publication that she isn’t boarding up, she isn’t opening her dining room because of the coronavirus yet, and she isn’t letting her personal, family-run business do anything but succeed.

— LAist has a story out on the still-growing trend of quarantine baking, and the restaurants that are stepping in to help supply the basics like flour and yeast.

— After multiple days of county-mandated curfews, Los Angeles is not expected to force citizens to stay at home tonight. The rolling daily curfews began last weekend and culminated yesterday in the ACLU suing the city, calling them a “suppression of all political protest.”