Approaching Chinese New Year's Eve, the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner has also become a topic of concern. This year's Chinese New Year's Eve dinner reservation is much more popular than the previous two years, and in the face of the grand situation that a table is hard to find, many restaurants have made Chinese New Year's Eve dinner ** in order to cater to the market. However, under the embellishment of words such as "family happiness" and "happy **", although the ** of the Chinese New Year's Eve meal ** is often thousands of yuan and tens of thousands of yuan, consumers have almost no choice about the dishes and meal times.
The reporter recently visited a number of restaurants and found that some said that the private room only provides a fixed seat, some said that they did not accept a la carte and additional dishes, and some said that they could add dishes but had a fixed menu, ranging from 1688 yuan to 16888 yuan. Although some restaurants have set **, they can still choose a la carte, but there are minimum requirements for single-order dishes**, such as only providing **16888 yuan**, and the single order must reach the same price. Some restaurants also set a minimum consumption limit for different stalls for Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, even if you dine at the booth, you must reach the minimum consumption of 600 yuan per person. Or, in addition to the 8 people specified in **, an additional fee of 599 yuan will be charged for each additional guest.
In addition to the limited right to choose, some restaurants also see the mentality that consumers want to have a happy New Year, turn big things into small things, and make small things small, and hide conditions such as service fees and time-limited consumption in **, but do not take the initiative and do not inform consumers in advance. During the visit, the reporter found that when asking about the specific ** of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, most restaurants did not take the initiative to mention that they would charge a certain amount of service fees. Until the reporter explicitly asks if there is a service charge, he will be told that on top of the ** amount, there is an additional 10% to 20% service charge or private room fee.
There are also merchants who ask for the full amount of the Chinese New Year's Eve meal** when accepting the reservation, but do not specify whether or how much will be refunded if the reservation is cancelled. Some businesses also require a deposit at the time of ordering, but it is not clear whether the money can be refunded if the reservation is cancelled. After searching on social platforms with keywords such as "Chinese New Year's Eve dinner", "deposit" and "deposit", the reporter found that many netizens complained that after paying the deposit and canceling it, the hotel asked for a proportional deduction or full deduction of the deposit, ranging from a few hundred yuan to thousands of yuan.
In addition, even if consumers pay for the full meal in advance, they may not be able to enjoy the Chinese New Year's Eve meal "as they want". Many restaurants have limited time rules for dining, and some hotels have made it clear that if they do not evacuate by then, they will have to pay an additional overtime fee.
For this frequent consumption "routine", many consumers complain. Lawyer Yue Xuefei believes that consumers' right to know and the right to make their own choices should be effectively protected, and catering companies should take the initiative to inform consumers in a timely manner, whether it is restrictive clauses or consumption details. The act of deliberately concealing or hiding the fee in the bill for the consumer to pay is suspected of violating the law, and the consumer can refuse to pay and file a complaint with the regulatory authority.
In the traditional concept of Chinese, a sumptuous Chinese New Year's Eve dinner is the most important "reunion banquet" of the year, containing everyone's expectations for happy reunion and a better life. With the improvement of people's living standards and the change of consumption concepts, more and more people choose to eat Chinese New Year's Eve dinner in restaurants. The high demand has brought the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner into the "seller's market", and the restaurant's voice has greatly increased relative to consumers.
During the visit, the reporter found that during the Spring Festival, labor costs and ingredients were reduced to varying degrees, resulting in an increase in the operating costs of restaurants. In order to facilitate stocking, save costs and leave profit margins, many restaurants have worked the best matching, dish quality and service quality. However, there are also restaurants that regard the favor of consumers and hot reservations as a hard-won profit-making opportunity, and take the opportunity to issue a number of "overlord clauses". All kinds of chaos such as inconsistent price and quality, unreasonable pricing, and non-compliant charges make it difficult for consumers to eat happily.
In fact, the chaos in the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner market is not a new problem. In addition to clarifying the red line on related issues at the legislative level, all localities are basically strengthening supervision through administrative law enforcement methods such as daily inspections and pre-holiday inspections, but they have failed to fundamentally solve the problem, and there are incidents of infringement of consumer rights and interests every year. When consumers initiate complaints, they are prone to encounter situations such as kicking the ball, no evidence, and a long time, resulting in ineffective rights protection, and they can only stop it.
Lawyer Yue Xuefei said that the main reason for the repeated prohibition of Chinese New Year's Eve meal consumption is that some catering enterprises have weak legal awareness and are mercenary, and it is easy to ignore or even infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. If the cost of violating the law is less than the benefit of violating the law, it may be done intentionally. At the same time, the regulatory authorities sometimes have problems such as selective law enforcement and sports law enforcement, which provides a breeding space for the "gambler" psychology of catering enterprises.
Yue Xuefei believes that in order to fundamentally eradicate this phenomenon, enterprises must first update their concepts, and they must realize that catering is a long-term business, not a "one-shot deal". Therefore, we must consider consumers and protect their legitimate rights and interests, so that we can make money and be profitable. At the same time, from the regulatory level, it is also necessary to take a two-pronged approach to legislation and administration, on the one hand, to issue normative documents in a timely manner, and on the other hand, to strengthen supervision through regular inspections, early intervention and rapid response to consumer complaints. Only by working together can consumers have a happy and happy Chinese New Year's Eve meal.
Take a look at the news knews editor: Jin Mei, Chen Yuhui, Ruan Li).