Council President González with Miki Sodos of Cafe Pettirosso (Image: Seattle City Council)

Here is a rundown of a busy Monday of votes from the Seattle City Council:

• The council unanimously passed legislation “supporting restaurants’ self determination on delivery apps.” Council President M. Lorena González’s Fair Food Delivery Bill is designed to require food app companies to seek consent from a business before listing it on a delivery platform. “At times, restaurant owners didn’t know their businesses were on the apps, and couldn’t make contact with the platforms to remove their businesses,” the council press release on the bill reads. “This resulted in many challenges, including not being able to change outdated menus and issues with orders that ultimately impacted customer relationships.” Capitol Hill restaurant owner Miki Sodos, owner of Cafe Pettirosso, Bang Bang Cafe, and Bang Bang Kitchen, was included in the announcement. “I have no control over our menu and the delivery services are always wrong,” Sodos said. “The drivers will not communicate with the customers for us, so we sub to the best of our ability. Sometimes we end up with angry customers because they did not get the order they asked for, and it is completely out of our control. My menu and logo are my intellectual properties that I developed. No one should not be able to use them without my explicit permission. This is long overdue.” Effective September 15, 2021, delivery app rules include:
  + Requiring food delivery platforms establish a written agreement prior to offering takeout or delivery from any restaurant in Seattle
  + Allowing restaurants to end the agreement with a written request
  + Platforms would have to remove the restaurant’s listing within 72 hours
  + A maximum penalty of $250 per violation
  + Revenues from penalties will be used to support small restaurants
• The council Monday also passed a new ordinance regulating hiring and payment rules for independent contractors. Ostensibly, West Seattle rep Lisa Herbold’s legislation “requires the employers of independent contractors to provide pre-contract written disclosure of contract terms, and to make payments within certain timeframes, and to provide similar written disclosures accompanying payments,” but, as Seattle City Council Insight reports, stakeholder groups including the city’s Labor Standards Advisory Commission have raised concerns that the Office of Labor Standards lacks adequate education and enforcement resources for the new rules. Despite the misgivings, the ordinance passed 8-0.
• Finally, the council passed a proclamation honoring Pride Month and recognizing that “LGBTQ communities in Seattle are an integral and vibrant part of the academic, economic, artistic and social spheres of Seattle.”

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍