CLEVELAND — Nearly two weeks ago, Cleveland capped the fees delivery services could charge restaurants at 15%, but now, DoorDash is changing the game.
The company is now charging the "Cleveland Fee" which comes with a message saying it's needed to continue offering convenient delivery.
City Council President Kevin Kelley spearheaded this measure as a way to help restaurants, which included protections for delivery drivers too, but he says this latest fee is a disappointing attempt to shift the costs.
He said city council will be back to work on January 6 and they will look at whether they can strengthen the language around the measure.
On Tuesday, Kelly released this statement:
"DoorDash’s arrogance, hutzpah, and greed is astounding. They are charging an extra $1 per delivery and calling it the 'Cleveland fee'.
"Council passed legislation limiting how much delivery services like DoorDash could charge businesses on Dec. 9th to help the small restaurants and businesses hurt during this pandemic. The mayor signed it soon after and it went into immediate effect because it was passed as an emergency.
"That same day DoorDash did an initial public offering of stock and was valued at $38 billion dollars. Today, Dec. 29th at about 11:30 am they were valued at $46.98 billion dollars. So of course, being so wealthy they decided to fleece Clevelanders and in the process hurt small Cleveland businesses.
"Council will immediately look into what they can do legislatively about this corporate greed. Have they no shame?"
DoorDash released the following statement on Monday:
“During this unprecedented time, providing the best possible service for our community is critically important. In select cities where lawmakers have imposed price regulations that limit our ability to work with restaurant partners, DoorDash is considering various measures to offset their unintended consequences. In some cases, this means charging customers an additional fee when they order from restaurants in their city to help ensure that we can continue to offer them convenient delivery while helping to ensure that Dashers are active and earning and that merchants can access the services to help drive volume as dine-in remains limited.”
