Customers ‘doing runner’ without paying is on the rise
THE number of people ‘doing a runner’ without paying for a bill has reached a 16-year high in Greater Manchester, new figures reveal.
Over the last year, people across the city have dodged payments for goods like taxis, fuel, meals and drinks at an average of 18 times a day.
Greater Manchester Police have recorded a staggering 6,379 crimes of ‘making off without paying’, the highest rate since the recording system was introduced 16 years ago.
Last year there were 6,069 – meaning billdodging crimes have risen by five per cent in Greater Manchester in a year.
Those figures, released by the government in July, show the number of reports of people leaving taxis, driving off from petrol stations, or eating at cafes, bars and restaurants without paying.
The latter are known as ‘dine and dashers’.
Gabriel is a waiter at Ply – a pizzeria in Manchester city centre.
Like many restaurants in the industry, he has to contribute to the cost of the bill if a table leaves without paying.
“It does happen more than you might think,” he said.
“Most of the time when people do it, it seems premeditated – but it’s one of those things as a waiter you just can’t predict.
“It’s very difficult to put my finger on what sort of person does it.
“I’ve been surprised in the past.
“One of the things in the industry is that if we as waiters lose money – it has to be made up somewhere else – so we do try and keep an eye on tables.
“We do our best to keep an eye on customers but we can’t watch them all the time.”
Veronika is a duty manager at Cain and Grain in the city’s Northern Quarter.
She said: “It does happen here and there, we try to make sure it doesn’t but if someone comes in with the intention to do it, it will happen.
“I would say it depends how busy we are, but when we are busy I would expect at least one person a week to leave without paying.
“When it is busy, it definitely makes it easier for someone to sneak off without paying.
“You can pay at the bar or table service here so I think some people actually just do it by accident.”
Last year, a man was jailed after making off from a string of Manchester restaurants without paying.
He managed to pull off the scam at a host of restaurants, including celebrity hotspot San Carlo, despite needing crutches following a car accident.
Under the guise of needing to use a cash machine, the punter would leave the venue and then not return.
The 38-year-old was sentenced to 36 weeks in prison at Manchester magistrates court after admitting six counts of eating and drinking and making off without payment.
The maximum sentence for making off without payment is up to two years and a fine of up to £1,000.
The increase in Manchester appears to reflect something of a national trend across England and Wales, with 86,528 crimes of making off without paying in 2017/18.
But not all those in the Manchester restaurant industry have experienced the issue.
Franco Sotgiu is the co-owner of Solita, which has branches in the Northern Quarter, Didsbury and in Prestwich.
He said: “We have not really had a problem here at Solita.
“In the last six years I think we’ve had about six people who have left without paying.
“Because we have good CCTV we just put a picture up on our social media telling customers they forgot to pay their bill.
“Within 10 minutes they usually pay the bill.”
The Metropolitan Police in London had the highest rate of making off without paying crimes per day, at 36.