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Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

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Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#121
post #46

Man - California, specifically the Valley, is completely off its rocker when it comes to policy making. I really hope Amazon's new HQ helps pave the way to start de-centralizing the tech industry from that one, overcrowded, and increasingly almost hostile spot.

I'd just like to point out that Amazon HQ isn't in California, it's in Washington over near Microsoft, separated by half of California and the state of Oregon. Either way, I hope the same

Poster you're replying to said 'new HQ' indicating their comment was about the place Amazon is shopping to build, not their current Seattle HQ.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except of course that the value of the food is not $10 because it is not being bought retail. So the real value is probably more like $2, and even at two full meals per day that would translate to 200 working days times $4 is about $800.

The IRS values stuff like this at fair market value, not wholesale cost. The benefit to the employee is a meal that they would otherwise have to buy at retail. So that's how it's valued. If they were to enforce it.

The benefit to the employee is that he does not have to bring it from home. Why would an employee automatically go out and buy lunch when a much more practical and cheaper alternative is available?

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#123
I live about 10 minutes from this location, and often frequent the restaurants there. It's smack dab in a high-traffic area (San Antonio+El Camino) and judging from the crowds, I can assure you that they get plenty of business already from the local community, even without Facebook.

That said, I would still have no problem if it was the landlord (WeWork) making this restriction, instead of the MTV government. This is a private business-to-business matter, and shouldn't be the domain of government.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#124
post #74

I was not surprised when I read the headline, but I was surprised when I saw the reason when I read the article. I had expected it would be over taxes. From the photos and description in the article and elsewhere, it looks like you can get full meals for free, meals that would cost at least $10 if bought at retail. An employee who took two meals a day at the free company cafeteria every working day would be getting a…

Except of course that the value of the food is not $10 because it is not being bought retail. So the real value is probably more like $2, and even at two full meals per day that would translate to 200 working days times $4 is about $800.

No, value is $10. Cost of ingredients $2. But 'making a nice dish and serving it is labour intensive' and so that brings it up to $9, the remaining $1 would be the profit of the restaurant.

A better way to think of it would be how much it would cost otherwise, and it's $10. So the calculation of annual value is pretty much there.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#126
post #56

I can kind of see where Mountain View is coming from, basically the "San Antonio Center" (if you didn't read the article, MV is only applying the restriction in that particular place, not in the whole MV) is one of two places in MV with some life and bustle (it's kinda the day destination, having a bunch of grocery shops as well as a walmart, kohls and target and the other is kind of the night destination, being more…

Why would it risk killing the life of the place? The people who already eat lunch there will still eat lunch there. This is simply a money grab by the people who happen to already be there, just like Prop 13 and rent control.

Large employers moving in and increasing land value would also increase the rent that a commercial landlord could get for offices vs. restaurants. Restaurants get no upside to this since it's very hard to compete with free. And this is before we consider that new companies moving in with free cafeterias could be replacing old companies with no free cafeterias.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#127
post #74

I was not surprised when I read the headline, but I was surprised when I saw the reason when I read the article. I had expected it would be over taxes. From the photos and description in the article and elsewhere, it looks like you can get full meals for free, meals that would cost at least $10 if bought at retail. An employee who took two meals a day at the free company cafeteria every working day would be getting a…

$10 for a full meal (not including tax and tip) is probably unrealistically low for the bay area. State and city minimum wages are increasing (SF is $14/hr and they have other mandates like healthcare coverage) so food and restaurant prices are going up (many meals seem to be in the $12-15 range, approaching $20 w/ tips). Many restaurants are closing, and are exploring alternate business practices, like pop-up stores, mandatory/included tips, and food trucks instead of fixed locations.

Forcing workers out of the office without their consent seems disingenuous. Travel expenses can be a burden, and such travel can cause disruption in areas where rideshare services may be flaky and increasingly dangerous to passengers.

The increase of food trucks is, on average, perhaps providing office workers with less nutritious food options which they have less control over (especially compared to big tech office cafes).

Increasing use of outside food establishments increases the 'lunch commute', adding to already-insane traffic, pollution, and stress for workers who already commute too much.

On the plus side, this may create increased demand for lunch spots, however it is increasingly difficult for them to operate while providing affordable prices for healthy food, and I don't think the increased demand would truly offset this effect, but rather could have negative effects on the workers caught in the middle.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#129
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MTV isn't "hostile" to tech. It just got greedy and is trying to get more out of its resident tech companies. "So we have all these big tech companies opening offices in our town... How do we get more out of them... Let's force their employees to buy their food in local stores by banning free food... Let's tax them a bit more..." Etc. This will work in the short term, especially when some of these rules only apply to…

> It will fail on the long term, as more and more companies question the wisdom of setting up shops in the Valley and California in general, and move to locations with much lower tax and restrictions, such as Austin TX. That sounds like a success from the perspective of folks who don't want their suburb to turn into SF or Manhattan?

If they don't want their suburb to turn into SF or Manhattan, then they're definitely taking the wrong turn by introducing this legislation.

Instead of a suburban office location, they are actively encouraging urbanization: more restaurants, more commercial spaces in general, more residents.

Moreover, all these tech campuses represent the majority of the richest residents of suburbs like MTV, and the main reason they are rich and have good schools etc. It would be very odd if the community as a whole wanted all that gone, especially when techies are a large part of the community.

Finally, if MTV wanted to repel tech, there are much more effective ways to do that with legislation. For example, they could apply the legislation to existing offices.

So no, I don't believe this is part of some campaign to avert MTV turning into "Manhattan", which is not something that can happen in the foreseeable future anyway.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#130

This is very interesting for me for a very different reason: We're in Germany where this is taxed heavily. If you offer your employees free meals, this becomes part of their taxable income, so you actually have to give them a raise to even this out, and then you have employees that want to opt-out to get the hands on that cash... I always wondered how Google Germany deals with this. There is a minimum below which it…

When I visited Google they were making people scan their badges so they could prove they were complying with the taxes.
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