The change comes after Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim publicly announced his party’s intention to repeal the fee earlier this year, and City Council then voted to amend the bylaw in February.
Instead, his frontline staff at the breakfast and lunch bistro have had to bear the brunt of customer complaints, particularly from tourists. Senecal-Junkeer’s restaurant offers a reusable cup exchange program, but he doesn’t see customers deterred by the single-use cup fee. He noted in an email that material environmental, social and governance risks are usually those that weigh on store sales and impact a brand’s labour costs like unionization or bad press related to labour practices or food safety. The City of Vancouver, however, is so small that initiatives like charging a single-use cup fee wouldn't impact the chain's consolidated bottom-line, according to Dunlop.
He said the cup fee also posed an administrative burden for businesses especially if they operate in more than one municipality, which would require them to change their point-of-sales systems and train staff differently.