If there’s anything state lawmakers are good at, it’s wasting time on frivolous legislation. This week’s return to the legislative session was no exception.
On Wednesday, a handful of lawmakers introduced H.4569, a bill that would designate the month of February as “Restaurant Staff Appreciation Month.” It goes on to encourage the citizens of South Carolina to tip their servers a “minimum of fifteen dollars” during the month. That latter portion was probably meant to be “fifteen percent”, but perhaps they expect people to tip fifteen dollars every time they order diet coke and an appetizer.
It doesn’t really matter how much lawmakers think you should tip your server, because it isn’t their job tell to tell you. Tipping is a custom, and it is done automatically by people who want to reward good service. Adding an entire section of law to remind citizens to tip and respect their servers almost implies that people weren’t doing so to begin with.
Lawmakers have been superfluously naming periods of the year for some time now. In fact, there’s an entire chapter of law titled “Special Days.” It includes “Family Respect Day”, “Loyalty Day”, and let us not forget, “Golf Week”, where South Carolinians must recognize the economic impact of the golf industry. Seriously, need there be a stauncher example of lobbyist influence in the state?
For all their “tough talk” on this year’s important issues like the nuclear ordeal and education reform, it’s hard to take lawmakers seriously when they waste time on proposals like this.