The New Year's Eve dinner reservation market is hot and chaotic, and restaurants offer "overlord clauses" to consumers
There are many consumer routines for the New Year's Eve dinner, and consumers complain incessantly
□ Reporter Sun Tianjiao and Wen Lijuan
There are still two days until New Year's Eve, and the New Year's Eve dinner reservations are coming to an end.
A reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" recently visited more than 20 restaurants in Beijing, Shanxi, Hunan and other places and found that the reservations for this year's New Year's Eve dinner are much more popular than the previous two years. Even the lobby is hard to find a table.
However, behind the popularity of New Year’s Eve dinner reservations, there are still many problems, such as limited consumption, minimum consumption, non-refundable deposits, etc., which make many consumers feel helpless.
Experts interviewed pointed out that the prosperity of the New Year’s Eve dinner market, on the one hand, relieves the hard work of cooking at home, and on the other hand, injects vitality into the catering market. However, frequent consumer routines have caused consumers to complain. They suggest that relevant departments strengthen supervision Law enforcement, urging relevant catering companies to rectify and reform, so that they can truly understand the rights and interests of consumers.
When consumers book the New Year’s Eve dinner, they must also carefully review the restaurant’s New Year’s Eve dinner set menu and related item standards to see if there are “overlord clauses” in it, so as to legally and reasonably protect their own rights and interests.
Is it a deposit or a deposit
word play annoying
"I booked a restaurant's New Year's Eve dinner early, but the elderly at home were afraid of the risk of the epidemic and asked me to return it. After communicating with the restaurant, they firmly refused to refund the deposit." Ms. He from Yuncheng, Shanxi made a reservation at the beginning of this year. I paid a deposit of 200 yuan for a private room on New Year's Eve in a restaurant, but was rejected due to personal reasons.
According to Ms. He, after she paid the deposit, the restaurant gave her a note as a voucher, left her personal information, and did not inform her that "the deposit is non-refundable", but when she proposed to cancel the subscription, the other party insisted that she had informed It is non-refundable deposit.
"The store said that the note at the time stated that it was a 'deposit' and not a 'deposit', and it was non-refundable." Ms. He said that she didn't know these things at the beginning, and she didn't notice the note until the other party said it. The words, deeply fell into the "word game".
The New Year’s Eve dinner dispute caused by non-refundable deposits is not an exception.
The reporter searched on social platforms with keywords such as "New Year's Eve dinner", "deposit" and "deposit" and found that many netizens complained that after paying the deposit and canceling it, the hotel asked for a proportional or full deduction of the deposit, ranging from a few hundred yuan to thousands Yuan.
According to Du Xiujun, a lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, according to the provisions of the Civil Code, if the two parties agree on a "deposit" method instead of a "deposit" method, then when the deposit does not exceed 20% of the subject amount of the main contract, the consumption have no right to request return.
Consumers should carefully confirm the nature of the advance payment to avoid being unable to request a return.
Fixed seating is common
Set a minimum consumption in disguise
In order to cater to the market, many restaurants also offer New Year’s Eve dinner set menus, embellished with auspicious words such as "happy family", "happy set meal" and "splendid delicacy", and the prices often include auspicious numbers such as "8" or "9".
However, the reporter found in an interview that some restaurants require consumers to only choose a fixed set meal when booking a New Year's Eve dinner.
The reporter recently visited several restaurants in Beijing, Yuncheng, Shanxi, and Shaoyang, Hunan. Most of them said that their private rooms only provide fixed tables and noodles, and do not accept a la carte or additional dishes. The price of set meals ranges from 498 yuan to 5,998 yuan.
A staff member of a restaurant in Yuncheng, Shanxi told reporters: "During the Chinese New Year period, there is a large flow of people, and restaurants cook in batches, so customers can only choose from specific set menus."
On New Year’s Eve, a seafood restaurant in Beijing’s Asian Games Village launched a happy family package for 6 people at 2,888 yuan, a yearly surplus package for 8 people at 3,998 yuan, and a happy meal package for 10 people at 5,998 yuan. Pick up yourself.
Mr. Liu, who lives nearby, told reporters that he and his family originally planned to buy a set meal for 6 people in the restaurant, but after looking at the dishes, they found that there was a lot of "moisture".
"We often went to this restaurant to eat, and we can see the weight marked on it, which is far from the more than 1,000 yuan marked in the set meal. The dishes in the set meal for 6 people, according to the level we usually eat, may It’s only 2,000 yuan at most, but now it’s 2,888 yuan, and it’s still claimed to be after a discount.” Mr. Liu complained.
Dining within a limited time drives people away
Fees not withdrawn by then
"When we went out for New Year's Eve dinner before, before we finished the meal, the waiter began to come in and out frequently to change the dishes, and kept asking if we wanted to pack and when to finish eating. After we finished eating, we came to the lobby and the guests at the next table Crows crowded in the aisle, and the scene was extremely chaotic." Ms. Xu from Yuncheng, Shanxi recalled to the reporter.
"I feel like I'm being rushed to eat. Once I ate for an hour, the guests at the table behind came one after another, and some people just pushed the door to enter our private room. It's too annoying." Ms. Xu said, if you order In the evening, I can only wait for the second round of meals. Not only have I missed the meal, but I have to wait for a long time, and the table in front is a mess after eating, and the waiters don’t clean it up.
The limited-time dining situation mentioned by Ms. Xu still exists this year.
The reporter called a number of restaurants and found that most of them have limited time regulations. Some restaurants even shortened the dining time to one and a half hours, and some restaurants clearly stated that if they did not evacuate by then, they would have to pay extra overtime fees.
Du Xiujun believes that in principle, consumers have the right not to be chased away by merchants and to enjoy meals and services quietly, but they also have a reasonable time requirement; merchants have no right to ask consumers to leave within a reasonable period of time when consumers are enjoying meals and services. Consumers cannot be required to pay unreasonable fees such as overtime fees and fines.
If merchants want consumers to clear the venue in time for subsequent reception, they can adopt the method of clearing the venue within a fixed time limit instead of unreasonably charging overtime fees and fines.
Be careful before booking
Chaos governance needs to keep up
The interviewed experts pointed out that as consumers are more and more fond of having New Year’s Eve dinner in restaurants, the New Year’s Eve dinner has entered a “seller’s market”. Leading to frequent chaos in the New Year's Eve dinner market.
"During the Spring Festival, restaurants generally need to pay more salaries to their employees when they operate as usual. In addition, the price of food materials has generally risen. It is understandable for restaurants to raise prices appropriately. As long as the price increase is within a reasonable range and not excessive asking prices, I believe consumers will understand. However, these are not a shield for restaurants to implement the 'Overlord Clause', not to mention that many clauses have been explicitly prohibited by the Consumer Rights Protection Law, and if they continue to be implemented, they will be suspected of breaking the law." said Zhu Danpeng, vice president of the Guangdong Provincial Food Safety Promotion Association.
He suggested that consumers have more awareness of rights protection when booking New Year's Eve dinner, carefully review the restaurant's New Year's Eve dinner package and related project standards, see if there is any "overlord clause" in it, and conduct a comprehensive review of the rights and obligations of both themselves and the merchant in advance. Know it and make it clear in a written agreement.
At the same time, relevant departments should also strengthen supervision and law enforcement for violations of catering companies, and urge catering companies that formulate "overlord clauses" to rectify.
Du Xiujun believes that to control this kind of chaos, it is necessary to introduce measures from multiple dimensions: from the legislative and administrative levels, it is necessary to issue normative documents in a timely manner to clarify the rights and obligations of operators in the catering industry so that there are laws to follow; Management departments and consumer associations need to conduct regular inspections to deal with consumer complaints in a timely manner; from the operational level, the prohibited behaviors of merchants can be made into a merchant code of conduct announcement, indicating the complaint telephone number, and posted by merchants in the store where consumers can easily see places, and urge merchants to operate legally.
"For merchants, operating strictly according to the law, fair and reasonable pricing and providing services are the foundation of their foothold. They must improve quality and service, rather than trying to make a lot of money by relying on the New Year's Eve dinner. Starting from consumers and thinking about consumers, can we Only by retaining consumers can enterprises maintain long-term and stable development." Du Xiujun said.
Newspaper, Beijing, January 19th