Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Tony Briglio broke down last month and installed a credit card machine in his Lisbon Street deli.

He’d managed to keep Antonio’s New York Deli and Bakery cash-only for a couple of months after opening in August. Customer choice finally turned the tide.

“I’m not going to tell customers how they have to pay,” he said. “You can’t do that. You have to stay competitive, and this is one of the ways you do it.”

He relented in October, agreeing to take Mastercard or Visa from cashless patrons. His restaurant is one of the few lunch spots on Lisbon Street. He knows of at least two delis that failed downtown, plus he gets a lot of pressure from bigger restaurants. He needs any edge he can get, and too many customers had walked away when told they couldn’t use their plastic.

“I’d rather take cash, but you do what your customers want,” Briglio said.

Nationally, consumers want to use plastic. According to the U.S. Census, the percentage of households with at least one credit card increased from 16 percent in 1971 to 68 percent in 2001. Consumers spent an estimated $1.76 trillion with debit or credit cards in 2002, compared to $1.1 trillion in cash.

Cards are just as likely to be of the debit variety locally. There are at least 360,000 debit cards in use in Maine, according to the Maine Credit Union League. That adds up to a whopping 4 million transactions a month.

Consumer demand

“McDonald’s takes cards now, so does Wendy’s and so does everyone else,” said John Paradis, spokesman for the Credit Union League. “They’re not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re doing it because of consumer demand.”

Consumers say they love their cards because of safety and convenience.

Bonnie Gould of Peru had $40 on her, heading to the Auburn Wal-Mart. That amount of cash was rare for her.

“I don’t even like carrying cash,” she said. “I try to avoid it if I can.”

Fear of getting robbed is her main motivation.

“If they take my card, there’s not much they can do with it,” she said. “It’s just safer.”

For Crystal MacElree of Denmark, it’s all about convenience. Her wallet is less a bill holder and more a place to keep receipts.

“I don’t ever have to touch my money – it’s all automatic,” she said. Her employer direct-deposits her paycheck into her checking account and she pays with a debit card.

“I usually don’t have any cash on me,” she said. “It’s just more convenient to use my card.”

The cards also have benefits for merchants, said Cheryl Perrino, manager of Mr. Paperback in Lewiston. Customers are willing to spend a little more when they’re paying with plastic. And having less cash around means smaller nightly deposits at the bank.

“We don’t worry about loss prevention as much because we don’t keep that cash on hand,” she said. “It’s all electronic, already deposited.”

Taking plastic has meant a small bump in business, especially for corporate accounts and catering, said Briglio, the deli owner.

But he cringes when he sees lunch patrons reach for the plastic. The cards cost him about 1.5 percent on every transaction.

That’s about 6 cents for every $4 sandwich.

“One order at a time, it’s no big thing,” he said. “But added up, at the end of the week, it means a lot. It could be what I’d pay a person for a day. Cash, it’s right there and you put it in the bank. You know where it is.”