Maine lawmakers unanimously rejected a Democrat-led effort to ban dynamic pricing in restaurants and grocery stores throughout the state.
Although dynamic pricing can take many forms, this bill looked to target the practice of adjusting the price of products based on external factors, such as demand, weather, or other consumer data.
This bill also sought to prevent the use of “artificial intelligence-enabled pricing adjustment.”
Businesses would have still been allowed to set discounts and special limited-time prices — such as an early bird special or lunch menu — as well as use seafood market pricing.
Bill sponsor Rep. Marc Malon (D-Biddeford) argued earlier this year that the proposal was designed “to get ahead of a rising problem nationally before it takes hold in Maine.”
“The first question one might reasonably ask, as I did, is whether this is happening in Maine,” said Rep. Malon. “The answer is, as far as I can tell, not yet, which is all the more reason to put safeguards in place now, particularly since it is happening with increasing frequency elsewhere in the country.”
“We have an opportunity to pass forward-thinking legislation that will ensure more of Mainers’ hard-earned money stays in their wallets, instead of being siphoned into the bank accounts of greedy corporations,” added cosponsor Rep. Kilton M. Webb (D-Durham).
Several other lawmakers also submitted written testimony in support of this legislation expressing similar concerns over the potential impact of dynamic pricing, were it to be implemented in Maine.
Representatives of Maine’s hospitality and business communities, however, offered testimony in opposition to this proposal, raising concerns about the potential unintended consequences of such restrictions.
Nate Cloutier of Hospitality Maine, for example, argued that “this seems like a solution in search of a problem.”
“There’s been no outcry from customers and no documented widespread abuse,” said Cloutier. “Yet the bill introduces vague and confusing parameters that could make it harder for businesses to respond to day-to-day, real-world conditions and adjust prices accordingly.”
He also noted that this would make Maine an outlier nationwide, as no other states currently regulate pricing in this manner.
The Maine State Chamber of Commerce also testified in opposition to this bill, suggesting that dynamic pricing is a “legitimate business strategy” that may be employed to “lower prices during off peak times, reduce waste, and help small grocers manage their inventories,” especially when “dealing in a perishable-goods environment.”
The Maine Grocers and Food Producers Association also testified in opposition to this bill, expressing a “fear” that the exceptions listed in the law may “inadvertently miss” a wide range of practices regularly employed by businesses in the industry.
Following a public hearing and late-May work session, members of the Legislature’s Housing and Economic Development Committee unanimously voted down the bill, placing it in the legislative files as dead.
Because extraordinary bipartisan and bicameral action was not taken to recall the bill, the Committee’s rejection was finalized.
In order to override a unanimous Ought Not to Pass report, at least two-thirds of both the House and the Senate must vote to do so.
