New £5 note no thank you

[STEED]

Cambridge Rainbow vegetarian cafe refuses new £5 note

A vegetarian cafe is refusing to accept the new £5 note after it emerged the currency contains animal products.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38184599

Strikes me as a spot of madness. :doh:

[Skybird]

Nobody is forced to buy there, there are many alternatives, I assume.

If a shop owner would say he only accepts pure gold as currency, I'm okay with it. But he has to live with the consequences of the ways in which he runs his business, good and bad ones.

I also have no problem with shop owners saying they do not agree to make a deal with this or that customer, may it be a carnivore or omnivore like me, or a burkha-thing, or a known Nazi. I have a problem with "anti discrimination legislation" demanding shop owners to accept just everybody, no matter whom.

If I would run my own business, I would even reserve the right to refuse to agree to come to terms over a deal with a customer just becasue I do not like his nose. As long as I have not accepted payment or contract, I refuse to accept any obligation of mine. I am not the other's property, I am not his slave. Of course, I have to accept the consequences of my business decisions and sales policies as far as the behaviour of other potential customers is concerned.

I think these extremist vegetarians/veganists are mentally not to be taken serious anymore, but its their shop and thus their business. As long as they would not try to enforce their ways on my way of life and do not try to change society to their liking - which many indeed do try - I would not fight them. But where I get hindered in my free choice by their ideology, I start to go after them.

[Jimbuna]

They must have a cracking business if they can afford to turn customers away.

[Skybird]

Do not underestimate the motivational power of religious convictions, too. Over here, I avoid going to Bio-stores and alternative shops, its always like entering some cult's holy cave. And it always smells of rotten vegetable. Always. Even bigger Bio supermarkets have a certain smell around them that drives me away. Not to mention that staff there have to make loads and loads of unpaid over-hours, many of these stores are in spectacular violation of working standards as demanded by our oh so socially balanced laws. And these workers even do it, and like it!

Claiming that it is a motivation comparing to that of relgion, is no exaggeration.

[STEED]

Yes what the cafe is doing is not against the law but this bit did make me wonder..

Mrs Meijland said she had made a "promise" to customers that the cafe was an "ethical establishment".

I may be barking up the wrong tree but how can their establishment be ethical when people walk in wearing leather shoes and coats and may be fur as well. Seems too me they are being some what selective about their view point or just jumping on the band wagon. :03:

[Jimbuna]

Yes what the cafe is doing is not against the law but this bit did make me wonder..



I may be barking up the wrong tree but how can their establishment be ethical when people walk in wearing leather shoes and coats and may be fur as well. Seems too me they are being some what selective about their view point or just jumping on the band wagon. :03:

Good point but it could also be an advertising ploy as well.

[V13dweller]

Australia's money is made of plastic, yet the Anti-Oil industry advocates don't
complain, coins are made from mined metals and greenies don't seem to fuss, but oh well.


I think people in the UK are just finding reasons to cause trouble, all people do in this day and age is try to create trouble for one reason or another, though this is Legal Tender, so it is valid currency and they should respect that, but then again, I wouldn't want to be seen anywhere near that kind of place.

[Oberon]

Plastic is derived from oil, oil is created from the millions of years compression of dead plants and animals.

Yeah... :hmmm:

[NeonSamurai]

The difference that would be argued, is these animals died of natural causes, unlike the animals being used to make tallow, which now-a-days typically is produced in some of the most nightmarish factory farms your can imagine, where these animals existence is nothing but pure suffering, from the beginning to the very end. Objectively, the conditions of the factory farms/slaughterhouses are arguably worse than many of the Nazi Concentration/Extermination camps (and I say this without any hyperbole, having extensively studied both topics).

Many people are choosing not to support such businesses any more, so I can see exactly why they would not want their money, which is a product you can't possibly avoid using, be made of such stuff. As it intrinsically connects them to the process they strongly object to.

So ya, I too would strongly object to having my money made of the stuff. As I am making the conscious effort to avoid all factory farm products now.

[Platapus]

Just out of curiosity, I checked US law about this. Yeah, I am that type of guy. :doh:

There are no federal laws that require any merchant accept any specific denomination of bill or coin. I doubt that any State law would be allowed to contradict.

It happens quite often in business. As bus company is legally allowed to refuse payment in large denomination bills. Under our contract laws, it would be in the best interest of the company to make their policies clear before the customer engages in the contractual action.

Of course, the business must also accept the consequences of their policies. A company can refuse to accept specific types of legal currency but must also accept that customers will refuse to do business with them.

But yeah, if this shop were in the US, their policy would be legal.

[Redwake]

Plastic is derived from oil, oil is created from the millions of years compression of dead plants and animals.

Yeah... :hmmm:


Hahaha, you just made my day man.

[Skybird]

The real question is if in our politically hypercorrect times I, as somebody who does not care for vegan ideology and who rejects the idea that animal legal rights can even exist as a concept, can now sue this restaurant or cafe over discrimination of non-vegans? :88) And if not - why not?

And aren't the official bank notes and coins the only currency tokens guaranteed by the state as the only valid one? In Germany it is, is it different in Britain?

I mean these days you risk to be sued for discrimination any moment you say something or do something somebody else does not like and says it hurts his oh so precious feelings.

Few people only know that in Germany for example credit cards are no legally guaranteed payment token. Only banknotes and coins are guaranteed by the state to be the officially valid payment token. Think of it :hmmm:. Its absurd: both the legal situation, and the practical reality as well.

[Catfish]

Plastic is derived from oil, oil is created from the millions of years compression of dead plants and animals. Yeah... :hmmm:

No.
Coal consists of dead plants, and it always is a terrestial product.
Oil consists of marine plankton and less nekton, and almost no bigger animals. Plankton is not plants, biologically.
Both need the absence of air/oxygen for building up. And some million years.

The free oxygen in the atmosphere exists because a lot of stuff was pulled out of the oxydation cycle by an anaerobic environment, sweetwater swamps for coal and stagnating conditions on ocean floors, or at the lower part of shallow oceans.
[/smartass mode] :O:

[Oberon]

No.
Coal consists of dead plants, and it always is a terrestial product.
Oil consists of marine plankton and less nekton, and almost no bigger animals. Plankton is not plants, biologically.
Both need the absence of air/oxygen for building up. And some million years.


I knew I should have google-verified it before I wrote it. :03:

NeonSamurai makes a good point though, and it's for his reasons that I wish I could go veggie, but I like my meat too much. :oops: