There are plenty of restaurants and businesses that refuse to accept anything other than cash,but one Baltimore coffee shop is swinging the other direction after getting robbed one too many times.
WJZ-TV reports that the business is going cash-free after being robbed five times between Oct. 2016 and Jan. 2017. The idea being that employees will be a lot safer if there’s nothing for criminals to target.
“We’re not going to accept cash anymore,” said the cafe’s owner. “I’m going to take that out of the equation.”
Park Cafe was robbed five times from October to January. While the armed suspect is now behind bars, those crimes pushed Hart to ditch the cash drawer altogether.
Some patrons have expressed support for the idea, the cafe’s owner says.
“I would say virtually 90% of them have said, ‘Listen, you needed to do what you needed to do to protect yourself and protect your staff. We will continue to support you,’” he said.
The cafe is also working with a local pharmacy and a church to find options for unbanked patrons who don’t have access to credit cards, debit cards, or other cashless payments systems.
The shop isn’t the only eatery out there putting the kibosh on cash: Salad chain Sweetgreen stopped accepting cash as payment in its 60 locations starting Jan. 18 this year .
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist