Dear Sir,

I seem to recall, in the cloudy recesses of my ageing brain, that, many years ago, the Bermuda government made it illegal for restaurants to charge a service fee and have a line for additional gratuities at the end of the bill, as it was confusing our American tourists who automatically added a further percentage, presumably having not noticed the earlier charge.

Now, most restaurants are doing exactly that through their card machines — the bill includes a service charge and the machine is handed to you with the screen asking how much extra you want to add for gratuities.

If you query it, the usual explanation is that the initial charge — usually highlighted on the menu as “18 per cent gratuities will automatically be added to your bill" — is split among all of the staff, whereas the additional gratuities go specifically to your server.

Regardless of how they try to spin it, it is still being suggested that you pay double gratuities and, of course, the second 18 per cent is actually 21.24 per cent, because you are paying it not just on your food and drink, but also on the initial 18 per cent service charge.

Rather than making the customer feel guilty about how poorly paid the servers are, just pay them a fair wage; don't add an automatic service charge; and let us decide how much to give them over and above the cost of the food and drink.

Yours paying cash,

ANDREW R. DOBLE

Smith’s