california restaurants
Can restaurants &quot;force&quot; a minimun 15% tip for delivery service in California?
<p>Found that some restaurants promote &quot;free&quot; delivery when total over 60 dollars, as customers we can choose leave no tips, or any amount we want.  When the order total is 59.9, it charges 15% as tips as default, and we can increase it. Is that legal in California?</p>

<p>By definition, a tip is at the discretion of the customer, so what you have is a service charge – a service charge is legal. It is legal to offer free delivery for orders over a stated amount, and to charge a percentage as delivery charge for lesser amounts. There is no specific law requiring a business to use the term &quot;service charge&quot; and no law forbidding them to separate the mandatory from the voluntary parts of the service charge / tip. However, if the amount charged is called a tip, it must go to the employee, whereas a &quot;service charge&quot; can go to the business. Therefore, it would be illegal to call it a tip but treat it as a service charge.</p>
