It's a divisive issue.  Once upon a time, tipping was a way to show your appreciation for good customer service from an employee.  Whether it was at the restaurant, the hair salon, or even a taxi ride - it was up to the customer to decide if and how much of a tip was left.

Then, business owners started scaling back the pay scale for employees who routinely received tips as part of their job.  Suddenly, it became an expected requirement for a customer to leave a tip - a generous tip - for any business transaction -- albeit a good or a bad one.

Now a restaurant in Vermont has added their establishment to the growing list of businesses that add in a mandatory tip.  In this case, the tip is a way for the restaurant management to assure that their staff is tipped according to Vermont standards.

As tourists flock to Vermont, they bring with them different tipping customs — or worse, a stingy pocketbook, reports ABC News. To counteract $150 restaurant bills with only $1 left for tip, restaurants around town have started tacking on gratuity, customarily only added for large parties, to groups of any size.

Not to point fingers, but tourists from out of the country are posing the biggest problems.  But in their defense, some of these European customers don't know that they have to leave an additional tip.

One Burlington restaurant owner told ABC that all foreigners have proven pretty cheap with tips when compared with Americans. But it’s likely just based on tradition. It isn’t uncommon in Europe for gratuity to be part of the final bill, leading some visitors to not even plan on adding a tip at the end.

In some cases, these mandatory tips tack on an extra 18% to the total bill.

What do you think about mandatory tipping?

 

 

 

 

 

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