Metro

Tip-jar madness takes city

After shelling out $16 for an overpriced Budweiser and an oily sausage-and-pepper sandwich at Thursday’s Met game at Citi Field, Kelsey Kiefer saw something so shocking he had to smile.

There, right next to the $5 dogs and watered-down sodas, was a tip cup.

“I laugh to myself that those workers think that people are actually going to put money in it,” said the 24-year-old insurance worker from Woodside, Queens.

Tip cups — that ubiquitous scourge of New York City — can now be found at your movie-theater concession counter, your local McDonald’s, your favorite sidewalk vendor and in your gym locker room.

Worse, many bear obnoxious sayings like, “Tipping isn’t a city in China,” or “Momma Needs a New Pair of Shoes.”

Samantha Shepherd, a 25-year-old Ph.D. student from Queens, refuses to go to a C-Town Supermarket near her neighborhood because the grocery’s baggers have tip jars.

“I had this conflict of feeling: I felt bad for not giving her money, but I didn’t feel she deserved it. I don’t go to that supermarket anymore,” she said. “You’re made to feel guilty. And I don’t like that.”

But some tip cups may be warranted.

The New York Water Taxi service to Ikea, which is free on the weekends and $5 during the week, has a tip cup for its boat staff.

“It’s for the friendliness, the personal service we provide,” said Charles Cumbo, a water-taxi operator who provides bits of historical information during the trip. “If you ride a taxi, you feel compelled to tip. This is a taxi on water. And a much better service.”

As New Yorkers are feeling the money pinch, many service-industry workers are pressuring patrons for tips, sometimes using aggressive tactics like tacking on automatic gratuities, and even bullying.

After he got “less than adequate service” for a $40 massage at 88 Chinese Qi Gong Tui-Na in the East Village, Andrew Kaufteil was ready to give a $6, or 15 percent, tip.

“I felt like they were mocking me and laughing at me in Chinese,” said Kaufteil, 31, who was visiting from San Francisco.

“When I went to pay the tip, they insisted that I pay more and that they had a ‘$10 minimum tip amount.’ I was intimidated into paying them.”

Some restaurants tack illegal gratuities onto checks, adding an automatic tip without saying so on the menu and on parties of less than six. Both are finable offenses.

Sometimes, they just don’t give you a choice.

When Jenn Butler, a 28-year-old nonprofit budget manager, approached the receptionist at the Upper East Side’s Completely Bare after getting expensive laser hair-removal treatment, she was asked, “How much gratuity would you like to be added to your card?”

Butler was shocked. She was used to paying nothing when she spent $1,000 on laser treatments at doctors’ offices. So she fled.

“I told her that I was going to pop to an ATM, and never came back,” she said.

She noticed a different ploy when she got her nails done at a salon on the Upper West Side. A man came by to rub her shoulders as her nails dried, but she declined. Another patron let him do it, but stopped the session when he tried to get her to sign on for a half-hour massage.

“He just stood there after she said no and waited for 10 minutes. She finally reached in her bag and gave him some money to go away,” Butler recalled. “I just feel like, in the city, if you don’t watch out for yourself, you’re going to get screwed.”

While New Yorkers are typically more generous than the rest of the nation — paying an average gratuity of 18 percent, versus the nationwide 15 percent — they are also ordering and going out less, according to the New York State Restaurant Association.

“Waiters have to work twice as hard for the money. If I were a waiter now, I would have to work five double shifts to make the same amount of money,” said Steve Dublanica, whose book on tipping, “Keep the Change,” will be published by Ecco in November.

But what about those tip cups?

Those in favor note that most get the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which is almost impossible to live on in the Big Apple.

“Of course, there’s been a decline,” said Kienan Briscoe, 22, who works at a Starbucks in the Financial District.

His hourly tips dived from $3 an hour to $1.50 an hour due to the economy and to the fact that he moved from a West Village Starbucks whose patrons often tipped more.

Gratuitous

The average New Yorker tips 18 percent, spending the following in gratuities each year:

$1,170 at restaurants. New Yorkers spend an average of

$41.81 per meal and eat out 3 times a week.

$391.34 on delivery food. New Yorkers spend

$20.90 per meal and eat in 2 times a week.

$568.34 at bars. Drinks cost an average

$10.12 each. New Yorkers drink three a night and go to bars twice a week.

$308.88 to cabdrivers. New Yorkers pay $11 per trip and take a cab 3 times a week.

$30 per doorman during the holiday season.

$30 to building superintendents during holiday season.

$23 for dog walkers during the holiday season.

$777 to nannies during the holiday season, equivalent to a week’s pay.

$34.23 in hairdresser tips. Average national haircut price is

$31.69 and people go to the salon an average of 6 times a year.

Total tips per year: $3,33 3.79

Sources: 2010 Zagat Survey, 2009 Zagat Nightlife Survey, Park Slope Parents 2010 Survey, American Salon Magazine’s 2010 Green Book Survey, TLC

scahalan@nypost.com