County caps fees for delivery

Restaurants complain of price gouging by apps

Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy signed an emergency order Monday morning capping the fee that third-party delivery apps can charge to deliver food in the county at 15 percent.

Mccoy said the move is intended to tamp down on price gouging that restaurants say they are experiencing at the hands of apps like Grubhub and Doordash. Some fees have reached as high as 30 percent, he said.

“What do they really have invested in the community?” he said of the third-party apps. “They’re not paying for property taxes. They’re not paying for the side of the buildings or worker’s compensation or for workers to help them put food on the table and pay their rent, pay their mortgage.”

The order takes effect Friday. Mccoy said he will renew it weekly until the County Legislature passes its own version into law. That version will include enforcement, financial relief and legal recourse options for restaurants, said Andrew Joyce, chair of the county legislature.

Mccoy said other cities have taken similar steps, including Syracuse, New York City and Seattle.

News of the order was announced at the county's COVID -19 briefing Monday. At that briefing, Mccoy also announced that another county resident has died due to complications from the disease. The victim was a woman in her 80s, he said.

Her death brings the county's known coronavirus death toll to 181.

The county also confirmed another 154 cases of coronavirus overnight, Mccoy said. Most of them — 138 — could not be traced back to a likely exposure source.

Meanwhile, another 11 county residents were hospitalized with the virus overnight. A total of 86 county residents are now hospitalized with the virus, a net increase of six from Sunday. Thirteen are in intensive care.