In 2020, as we slowly emerged from lockdown, a quilt shop
near me placed a sign on their door saying, “Cash not accepted.” There was a coin
shortage, so they couldn’t always make change. Also, they worried about being
infected by handling money. The quilt shop sign is long gone, but last week we suddenly
ran into a similar one at a pizzeria. We didn’t ask why it was there, but wondered
if this was even legal. As it happens, there’s no federal mandate for retail businesses
to accept legal tender. Unless your state insists, you’re free to tell
customers you’ll only take credit and debit cards. But even finding out which
states allow this and which don’t is trickier than you’d think. Why does it
matter? The 55 million Americans who can’t pay with a check or card would be shut
out of the economy. In a natural disaster, we could ALL share that predicament.
No comments:
Post a Comment