Restaurant Reservation Markets Are Good. Outlawing Them Is Not.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act into law on December 19, 2024, prohibiting third-party restaurant reservation services from arranging reservations unauthorized by restaurants. Hochul celebrated the passage of the Act as “giving everyone a chance to get a seat at the dinner table.” But banning certain third-party reservation services from selling to consumers doesn’t create more seats at fine dining establishments, it just changes how you get one—or don’t.
New York Sen. Nathalia Fernandez (D–Bronx), the sponsor of the Act, blames unauthorized resellers like Appointment Trader for causing “chaos for restaurants with last-minute cancellations and no-shows.” Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, echoes Fernandez’s concerns, saying that restaurant reservation scalping “creates a barrier” between restaurants and customers “when unknown guests show up.”
The frustration of restaurateurs not knowing who’s going to dine at their establishments is understandable. Unnecessary vacancies are uniformly bad for restaurateurs, staff, and diners. Seeking to remedy this, the act bans reservation services from listing reservations without a written agreement from restaurants. Reservation services found in violation of the act, which goes into effect on February 17, could face fines of $1,000 per day, per restaurant.
Melissa Fleischut, president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, laments how “AI bots have exploited their hard work by hoarding these coveted reservations and selling them for a profit.” Assemblymembe
Article from Reason.com
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