DETROIT (WXYZ) — When paying for goods and services, some people use Apple Pay and others use credit cards. But for one Detroit man, he prefers to use cash, and he says some businesses are refusing to accept it.
“They just told me credit card only,” Sean Taylor said. “Put your card in the machine.”
Taylor is talking about a recent experience at a Detroit restaurant. When he was checking out, Taylor said his cash was turned away and a credit card was the only way he could pay.
Last September, the Detroit City Council passed an ordinance that said businesses in Detroit cannot go cashless.
Councilwoman Angela Whitfield Calloway spearheaded the law.
Related video: Detroit councilwoman fights trend of cashless businesses with proposed ordinance
“The cashless ban ordinance simply says you have to accept cash,” Calloway said.
But there are some exemptions.
“I do believe Ford Field, LCA and Comerica Park (should have exceptions),” she said. ‘Because when you go into their establishment before the ordinance came into effect, they already had a kiosk system, so you just insert your cash and a debit card will come out.”
But some metro Detroiters think the exception for the large venues is unfair.
“I think they’re kind of forcing people to go everything digital, and that’s kind of shaky,” Andre James of Detroit said.
“That’s not fun,” Sarah Ciccone said.
At sporting venues like Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena where they have machines that convert your cash into a prepaid credit card, they do not have to adhere to the ordinance if certain conditions are met.
“There's no expiration date to the credit card — to my knowledge — so you can use that credit card throughout the city and not just at that location. It is an actual debit card,” the councilwoman said.
A fee cannot be charged for using the card, and it must be able to be redeemed for cash.
A spokesperson for Ford Field said they allow the remaining balance on the card to be redeemed for cash on site.
But a statement from LCA, which also oversees Comerica Park, makes no mention of being able to get cash for what's remaining on the card at their venues.
Taylor says this is just another way of telling people how to use their money.
“They are dictating. They aren’t trying; they are dictating,” Taylor said.
