Originally Posted by
davie355
The 4% is not part of the tip, correct.
It's a state mandated fee, not correct. The state mandates that the restaurant provide health insurance to its servers. Some restaurants impose a surcharge and blame it on this mandate. The state absolutely does not mandate charging this fee.
It's not the state of California that mandates health insurance, as far as I know it is only the city of San Francisco (although can Berkeley be far behind?). I've almost never seen the 4% charge anywhere else and even in SF, the charge is most common in places that are more heavily visitor/tourist oriented.