As the semester nears to a close, seasonal phenomena in Washington Heights reappear from their winter hiatus. The children return to the parks, the domino players retire to their street corners and fire-hydrant car washes will soon be all the rage. Within the walls of Yeshiva University, the warm weather is a harbinger for the distastefully-named but ubiquitous “caf-daddies”: students who have extra money left on their caf cards and are happy to share with their budget-strapped peers before the funds expire at the end of the spring semester. 

As the Dining Services website explains, New York State law (Tax Law §1105(d)(ii)(B)) exempts university students who buy food or drink at a restaurant or cafeteria on their school campus from sales tax with a number of conditions. Most importantly, the sale must occur “under a contractual arrangement” in which students don’t “pay cash” when they are served. State regulations (NYCRR Tit. 20 § 527.8(h)) provide more detail: The meal plans — whether students have a fixed number of swipes or a set amount of money — must be tied to identification of each student. Constraints imposed by the law, along with additional rules that the YU Department of Dining Services has promulgated (and sometimes portrayed as legally required), create a grey area around “caf-daddying” and other caf card shenanigans.

Rollover Money

Since leftover caf money expires at the end of the academic year, students have incentive to share their funds with friends. To a certain extent, YU is bound by the law: A 1984 advisory opinion declared that refunding unused funds would make a meal plan too similar to paying in cash, an interpretation confirmed via email by Patrick Giordano, a senior attorney at New York State’s Department of Taxation and Finance. The Commentator petitioned for a new advisory opinion, but Giordano, the attorney assigned to the petition, suggested not waiting for an official opinion which could take years to wind through the bureaucracy. His answers are not officially endorsed by the governmental agency.

However, some wiggle room does exist. YU Chief Facilities and Administrative Officer Randy Apfelbaum acknowledged that the law allows the university to carry over money across academic years until a student graduates (or even while enrolled in graduate programs), but claimed that accounting purposes require the books to be zeroed out at the end of each June. Most other New York universities follow the same practice, but CUNY Graduate Center is a notable exception to the rule, allowing funds to remain valid as long as students are actively using them.

Sharing Food

All full-time undergraduate students are required to buy a meal plan. As the year winds to a close, some students inevitably have a large balance remaining. As mentioned, this incentivizes some students to become “caf daddies,” buying free meals for family and friends, or even paying the tabs of all nearby students. 

The issue is that these gestures plainly violate YU Dining Services’ policy. A large sign hanging over the cashiers in the Furman Dining Hall paraphrases the policy on the Dining Services website, which states that purchased “food is solely for the specific student.” The FAQ maintains that to keep the sales tax exclusion, the food must be “non-transferable,” which is interpreted to mean that the food must be purchased “by and for” the student that paid for the plan. The website warns that “significant noncompliance could lead to the loss of the sales tax exemption to the entire YU meal plan program.” To this end, Dining Services Management added signs to the checkout registers around the UTS Dor L’Dor Program, when fathers would be on campus stating: “Students may only use their dining funds for themselves. Sharing with others, including parents, is not permitted.”

However, from a simple reading of the laws and regulations, the dining services’ legal interpretation that forbids sharing appears to be in error. The “non-transferable” language which the Dining Services website uses appears to be sourced from the regulation mentioned earlier, which explains that a “scrip” which is transferable and not particular to a student fails to qualify as tax-free. The law requires that the purchase be by individual students from their own prepaid accounts; for that reason, a scrip without identification that can be used by any student is insufficient. Once students have purchased the food from their own funds, however, they can share it with whomever they wish. The regulations themselves require that otherwise tax-exempt students who intend to resell the food pay sales tax, but the implication is that a gift without payment would still be entirely exempt. “Caf-daddies,” therefore, pose absolutely no threat to YU’s tax-free meal program. Giordano, the state tax attorney, confirmed this point, saying, “If you share your fries with a friend or buy your parent a sandwich when they pick you up,” it “would not violate the exemption.” 

When asked, Apfelbaum continued to maintain that the law requires a no-sharing policy. When reached for comment, Director of Tax and Financial Compliance Alan Kluger directed The Commentator to YU’s Department of Communications for an on-the-record statement, citing department rules. Director of Communications Hanan Eisenman did not comment despite repeated requests. 

Apfelbaum reiterated that even if the law does not mandate the restriction, the no-sharing rule is still a long-standing policy. He likened sharing food from the meal plan to subletting dorm housing, explaining, “When you buy a meal plan, you buy for yourself. When you pay for a dorm, you pay for yourself. You can’t say, ‘Oh, I’m going to give my dorm bed away to someone else since I already paid for it.’” 

Director of Dining Services Sam Chasan added that if students could share food, it would affect the schools revenue because students who ran out of money wouldn’t have to add more money to their accounts.

Apfelbaum defended the no-sharing policy with the claim that “almost every university meal plan” has a similar regulation. A survey of other New York universities finds that some other schools do have similar policies on the books, at least officially, including Cornell University and Stony Brook University, although many meal plans — including those of New York University, City College of New York and Binghamton University — do not explicitly disallow sharing. 

As enforced, YU’s policy is not as absolute as it may seem. Cashiers will sometimes turn a blind eye, especially if students are not glaringly obvious about it. Chasan said that although bringing a tray of fries back to a table to share is technically against the rules, “I don’t care, and no one’s gonna stop you.” He said that problems arise when the violation is too flagrant to ignore, such as a student carrying multiple plates of food and telling the cashier he intends to share with others.

“If a student bought something for themselves and later decided not to eat it, better to give it to a friend than throw it away,” Apfelbaum told The Commentator. He pushed back, saying that such a case “is different from purchasing something that the student knows in advance will be for someone else. It’s all about the intent.”

It seems clear that despite telling students that the no-sharing rule is required by state law, YU Dining Services tacitly recognizes that sharing is only banned because of YU policy. Under the “Regulations” header, the Dining Services website explains that rules are part of the meal plan policy to comply with the “spirit” of personal use. If the rules of the policy were mandated by the law, the cashiers and managers would presumably be less nonchalant about enforcement, and the website wouldn’t just appeal to the “spirit” of the law but to its letter. What remains, then, is simply a university policy.

Editor’s Note: This is Part I of a two-part investigation into YU Dining Services’ policies.

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Photo Caption: Sign in the Furman Dining Hall

Photo Credit: Matthew Minsk