Q&A
Council Member Marte discusses OTC card acceptance and business implementation with DCWP
0:22:52
ยท
3 min
Council Member Christopher Marte engages in a Q&A session with Carlos Ortiz from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) regarding the implementation of OTC card acceptance by businesses. They discuss potential challenges, DCWP's resources for outreach and education, and comparisons to previous rollouts of payment systems like SNAP and EBT.
- Marte expresses support for Intro 1097, which would require certain retailers to accept OTC cards
- Ortiz discusses potential strategies for educating businesses and enforcing the new requirements, including an educational period and possible $0 penalties for first violations
- The conversation touches on DCWP's outreach capabilities, including leveraging current licensees and collaborating with the health department
Christopher Marte
0:22:52
Yeah.
0:22:52
I wanna just, plus one on council what council member Riley said.
0:22:56
You know, nationwide, we see big box, pharmacies closing, whether it's Rite Aid, whether it's a CVS.
0:23:03
And recently, we started seeing Amazon, take OTC cards online for some of their produce.
0:23:09
However, we wanna support our mom and pop shops and our local businesses.
0:23:12
And so we do think, there's a real need for October October ten ninety seven to pass.
0:23:20
One question I have is, do you believe that there will be any unreasonable cause for business owners to start accepting OTC cards?
Carlos Ortiz
0:23:29
I I'm not I'm not particularly sure, to be honest.
0:23:32
I think OTC cards in this space is something that's new for me.
0:23:35
But that being said, I think I'm, I think that's what we wanna learn today.
0:23:41
I'm also, I think it's also important to note that the bill the bill builds in, an educational period.
0:23:47
I think we also could have some recommendations too on how to have some, some small business supports, like $0 penalties, for example, on the first violation that ensures that we're moving businesses in the right direction, but not being overly punitive in the first instance.
0:24:02
And that might actually work, in the long term better than a in a year education period.
0:24:07
But, again, I I think we, you know, we've we've been working in this space a long time.
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I think we have lots of ideas we'd love to share.
Christopher Marte
0:24:13
Great.
0:24:13
And and based on your experience when we were rolling out, whether it's SNAP or EBT cards citywide, what were some of the obstacles did you guys encounter for small businesses or or big businesses to adopting those type of payment softwares?
Carlos Ortiz
0:24:37
Yeah.
0:24:37
I think, on the EBT side, I think that's typically I know I've seen kind of the when a consumer has been scammed in an EBT instance, that that's usually something more handled by HRA.
0:24:48
I'm, so I'm not really as familiar with the software that we use, but I think, if anything, it's something that we can make sure we speak with our colleagues about, to gain that better understanding if we have to roll this out.
Christopher Marte
0:24:58
Okay.
0:24:58
And, does DCWP have the ability and resources to send
Carlos Ortiz
0:25:09
I think we try to we try to focus on, in terms of our outreach, we try to focus most immediately with our with our current licensees as as a as a ready list that we can leverage.
0:25:21
We work very closely with the health department as well as another mechanism for us to be able to reach folks too.
0:25:26
I I think, on the outreach team, I'm certainly can try and be very creative, in making sure we reach businesses.
0:25:33
Not I should also mention too that, you know, VIP is now open to non licensed businesses, and that's gonna be something we would fold into that education as well.
0:25:42
So there's lots of different ways we can do it.
0:25:43
I think in the FIS we we put in as well, we we did request an additional inspector.
0:25:47
That's more on the enforcement side, but I didn't wanna leave that unsaid either.
0:25:51
But, yeah.
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I think I think we we have, certainly the ideas and experience for implementation here.
Christopher Marte
0:25:57
Awesome.
0:25:57
I appreciate, your testimony, and I wanna work with you to to seeing this a reality.
Carlos Ortiz
0:26:02
Thank you.
0:26:02
Thank you, council member.