Massachusetts AG Campbell: Cash Must Be Accepted Everywhere

The way things are going, cash will be a relic of the past, like compact discs, Game Boy, Blockbuster Video and Pokemon. Oh wait, isn't Pokemon still a thing?

Cash used to be king. Everyone carried cash. My uncle owned a neighborhood store and walked around with a folded wad of bills wrapped in an elastic band in his pocket. My Nana hid paper money all over the house. She was a product of the Depression.

Until relatively recently, most people cashed their paychecks on payday, put a little in their savings account, and the rest went into their pocket -- cash.

Lately, no one seems to have cash. Most of us swipe plastic or pay our bills online. You will wish you had some greenbacks when or if the grid goes down and you can't access the ATM or the internet. I'm a product of the products of the Depression.

Event venues don't want your cash these days. Fenway Park, TD Garden and Gillette Stadium have adopted cashless payment systems. Only plastic is accepted. Some folks are throwing the red challenge flag on this, as not everyone has credit or debit cards, and certainly not everyone can or wants to do online transactions.

Before she became governor, Attorney General Maura Healey gave thumbs up to a cashless payment system by which patrons of Fenway, TD Garden and Gillette insert cash into a kiosk, which spits out a debit card worth the amount they inserted. Patrons use debit cards to purchase food and other items from vendors.

Does it sound fair? Not so fast, says current AG Andrea Campbell. She recently told Boston 25 News, "State law requires retail establishments to accept all forms of legal tender, including cash, and such establishments cannot turn away customers because they do not have a credit or debit card."

Campbell says the law is "important as a matter of consumer protection and economic justice so that people who do not have access to non-cash payment options have full and fair access to the marketplace."

Campbell indicates that a change may be in the works, saying retail establishments "have to take all forms of money." She promises "more to come on that."