As of January 1, PUC no longer wants your cash

Is cash becoming passé?

As more and more North American restaurants go cashless, PUC Services Inc. in Sault Ste. Marie is advising customers that its main-office cash payment desk is about to close permanently.

A sign posted at PUC headquarters at 500 Second Line East declares the cash counter there will close effective Jan. 1, 2019.

Customers still wishing to pay their PUC bills with cash are being instructed to visit their banks.

Rob Brewer, president and CEO of PUC Services Inc., says less than two per cent of his customers pay their PUC bills with cash.

PUC Services manages electric and water distribution systems in Sault Ste Marie and Northeastern Ontario.

"It's a trend across the industry," Brewer tells SooToday. "Algoma Power across the street hasn't accepted cash for a long period of time."

"There are safety issues for employees when we have large amounts of cash here," he says.

"We require a service to come and take it to the bank on a daily basis. For the amount of customers who are currently paying with cash, having gone from being a very significant number to now being a very small number, it seems like an enormous expense for the other 98.6 per cent to share in."

Brewer points out that it's actually more convenient for people to pay their PUC bills at their neighbourhood bank if they wish to use cash.

"But for us, it's the trend across most industries that we're seeing less and less cash transactions. Having infrastructure dedicated to that doesn't make a lot of sense for us," Brewer says.

Cash is considered legal tender in Canada, but the Bank of Canada says it is not mandatory for Canadian businesses to accept it.

What would happen if a delinquent PUC customer who was about to be cut off service showed up on Second Line with sufficient cash?

"Technically we can have a policy but to be honest with you, if somebody's delinquent, if it's a situation where they're trying to keep their power on, we're never going to turn them away. We'll find a way to make it work," Brewer told us.

A 2019 budget approved by the PUC Services Inc. board Wednesday night calls for just a 55-cent increase (0.33 per cent) for the average monthly PUC residential customer, including water, sewage and electricity.

The budget provides $6.3 million in capital expenditures to maintain PUC infrastructure assets.