King County Councilmember: ‘The future is cashless’

New legislation has been introduced that would force businesses in unincorporated King County to accept cash.

“It’s a woke sort of policy being pushed forward based on some equitable principle, but what it’s doing is stopping progress,” King County councilmember Reagan Dunn told Jason Rantz on KTTH. “Sorry folks, the future is cashless.”

The idea is being put forth by councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Wells who says not taking cash excludes certain demographics from making purchases. She hopes it starts a trend.

King County Councilmember wants to require businesses to accept cash

“This requirement on cash is silly and it creates a civil penalty,” Dunn told to the Jason Rantz Show. “You can sue somebody if they won’t accept cash and it just goes too far.”

Dunn went on say the law would make more sense if it included urban portions of King County like downtown Seattle or Capitol Hill. “And it’s a little bit more like a solution in search of a problem,” he said.

Rantz said it doesn’t make sense in unincorporated King County or even in urban neighborhoods.

“We spoke with a coffee shop owner a couple of months ago who said she had to stop accepting cash because she kept getting robbed,” Rantz said. “They would steal the cash till which that alone is $250-$300 to replace each time on top of having to replace the $1,000 pane of glass that they broke to get in. So she’s only accepting credit cards.”

Dunn agreed. “We have a huge issue with respect to cash businesses, particularly ones that aren’t heavily secure. There isn’t much of a police presence that exists in unincorporated King County. It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Dunn said only 2% of the public doesn’t have a debit card. “What we should be doing as a county is putting our efforts into getting that one or 2% of people who don’t have access to a debit card to get them one.

“Then they can make a cashless purchase anywhere in the world that they want to make it that’s a better use of our legislative time.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.