Mar 04, 2010, 1:50am

I've been putting off my final post on the auto gratuities and price gouging during the Olympics to have some final sober thoughts about it to put to paper (or digital ink as it were). Plus I want to see just how long I can drag out this "temper tantrum" I'm having, according to Neil from Hamilton Street Grill. Maybe I can make it last through the entire post Olympics depression, who knows lol :)

And the post isn't coming today - I am going to do it one week after the closing ceremonies. But perhaps this is just a short preview.

I really want to acknowledge the businesses in Vancouver, especially downtown in high traffic areas that did not raise prices, did not gouge foreigners and locals alike with ridiculous auto gratuities. There's not many in Yaletown but I will definitely highlight them along with others in the downtown corridor. These are folks who, based on some direct feedback "did just fine during the Olympics without an auto gratuity" showing the arguments used by restaurateurs who did enforce a privateer Olympic tax were hollow.

I also want to talk a bit about restaurants outside the downtown corridor who saw major declines during the Olympics. While the Glowbal Grills and Earls in Yaletown had lineups out the door to get the privilege of paying marked up prices and 20% privateer tax, solid restaurants on Cambie, on Commercial Drive, on West Broadway were seeing half the traffic they normally do.

Then I'm going to continue my temper tantrum about the gougers, the auto gratuity places and do a final listing, which will be carried over to the Olympic Price Watch website for posterity.

I'm also going to go on a bit about other businesses that really racked up prices, including hotels and other service oriented businesses.

The idea of transparency is also on my mind, and I may work something into the blog entry about that. Transparency is an important issue in the coffee world, and one of the elements of "third wave"; however, in the restaurateur world, transparency is pretty much absent - if you asked a manager at a Donnelly Group restobar how much they took from the house tip pool, they'll probably 'sic a bouncer on your ass.

Lastly, I'll be doing some suggested courses of actions for people. They'll include the gamut, from "call me an asshole, ignore the list, continue going to these restaurants" to "permanently boycott every restaurant, tell 10 people about their actions during the Olympics, blog about it, twitter that shit, etc etc."

And in the interest of transparency, I'll be telling you my own course of action (beyond that blog entry) - I still haven't completely decided what it will be. Where I'm "known", I am pretty sure I won't be welcome back, and I'm getting more and more okay with that. But where I'm not known, like an Earls or a Glowbal Group place? Still haven't decided on a permanent boycott or a time limited (eg 1 year, 2 years) boycott. I guess I'll figure it out next week.

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Mixelania

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