A cash crunch

Sorry, your cash is no good. That’s the message that some retail stores are sending to customers to steer them toward cashless payments. The virtues are speed, convenience and safety, not to mention lower costs.

But such a system freezes out consumers who aren’t plugged into banks and the credit card world.

That’s why a pending measure by Supervisor Vallie Brown makes sense. She favors a ban on cashless stores in San Francisco. Her concerns mirror those of New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, which are considering similar measures. New Jersey has passed a ban that awaits gubernatorial action.

Retailers and many customers have warmed to using credit or debit cards instead of fishing for the right bills and coins for a purchase. Checkout lines can run quicker and there’s a measure of security in using a card, not cash. Amazon has opened two convenience stores in San Francisco with no clerks at all, letting consumers pay via a phone app on the way out.

But not everyone is so plugged in. By one federal estimate, 6.5 percent of national households don’t have bank accounts, a figure that includes young people with no credit history, people who prefer money over plastic and those too poor to qualify for a card. In a city with a wide income gulf, it would be unfair to exclude this group from using cash when buying everyday basics.

There are other issues worth considering.

Relying on electronic payment systems doesn’t necessarily produce sleepat-night security, as numerous hacking incidents have shown. And consumers who distrust credit or debit cards should be allowed a cash option.

The real winners in shifting to cashless payments may be store operators who need fewer cashiers.

Keep cash as an option.