A bill headed to the Governor’s desk would give restaurants control over which delivery apps they work with

INDIANAPOLIS — If you order food from certain delivery apps, your options could be changing. A bill headed to the Governor’s desk would allow restaurants to decide which delivery apps they work with.

Currently, there aren't any regulations to force third-party delivery services to honor contracts that are in place. Due to this, third-party apps are adding whatever restaurants they choose to their delivery options.

"We have a Doordash exclusive agreement with seven Indiana restaurants,” Blake Fogelsong, owner of Clancy's Hospitality, said. “We've had issues since the pandemic with other companies, like Postmates and Grubhub, putting our menus, trademarks and copyrights online. "

House Bill 1279 aims to change this.

"HB 1279 ensures customers are getting the best possible experience through third-party delivery companies. It also ensures restaurants who may not want to use third-party delivery companies have the ability to control that, " Patrick Tamm, CEO of the Indiana Restaurant & Lodging Association, said.

During the pandemic, third-party delivery apps exploded with very little regulation or ability for restaurants to track which apps are delivering their food. It led to delivery apps performing an act called "scrapping menus."

"Menu scrapping is putting a menu up on a website or third-party app without the restaurant's consent or a contract,” Tamm said. “In some cases, there are menu items listed that they don't even have, from an out-of-date menu. “

Under this legislation, if a third-party delivery service puts a menu online without a restaurant's consent, the restaurant can pursue legal action if the app doesn't remove the menu within 72 hours.

"If they do put our menus online, we have the right to sue them for up to $50,000. That's a big thing for us," Fogelsong said.

On top of that, restaurants say this will improve the customer experience and ease their concerns about food safety.

"We have had issues with drivers tampering with food. Third-party delivery apps also take longer. We have tablets at each of our restaurants right now, so when we get an order, a server rings it in," Fogelsong said.

While HB 1279 is something restaurant's support, delivery drivers feel this legislation could make it harder for them to make a living.

"We live off of our tips,” Lisa Flanagan said. “We only get paid two dollars from DoorDash, Grubhub and UberEats, so we depend on tips. Right now the economy is really bad, so the tips are really not as good as they should be. "

HB 1279 is currently waiting for a signature from the Governor. If signed, it would go into effect on July 1.