Last week the City Council unveiled legislation to limit food-delivery-app services like Grubhub, DoorDash and UberEats. But it looks like the wrong answer.
Last May’s exposé by The Post’s Kevin Dugan and Lisa Fickenscher revealed that Grubhub was charging restaurants fees as high as $11 for calls that didn’t result in takeout orders. That led to City Council hearings and now a six-bill “reform” package.
The council would limit app-services’ commissions and impose a fee structure. But lawmakers haven’t explained why existing regulations (and agencies) were insufficient to deal with the problem.
Councilman Mark Gjonaj (D-Bronx), who chairs the Small Business Committee, explains: Apps “come in and undermine the business model, and have an impact on whether or not [restaurants] stay in business.”
So abuse isn’t the issue: It’s the disruption brought by innovation. But what makes the council competent to sort that out?
A Grubhub flack warns, “This bill will slash business to mom-and-pop restaurants and hurt consumers in the process.” Anyone is free to not work with app services. But plainly most restaurants choose to take the business, even if they pine for the old days.
New York eateries face bigger problems, including mandatory paid sick time for employees and a $15 minimum wage. As one of our recent “Save Our City” essays noted, the City Council could make a far bigger difference by requiring economic-impact statements for each proposed new law, revealing its cost to the businesses it hits.
In other words: “First, do no harm.”



