Dear MRA Community,

The time is here for the industry to step forward and fund this campaign to defeat Question 5 in November. Fundraising is our biggest focus over the next two months. Tipped employees and restaurants are our best assets. We will have servers talking to restaurant patrons, in-person, digitally, on social media, and on radio and television, about why they are voting No on November 5th. The messaging is there, the campaign team is in place. We have coasters, door clings, decals, pins. We envision every restaurant being a mini-campaign headquarters.

The MRA has raised and spent nearly $600,000 in preparation for this question. There have been legal lawsuits, signature challenges, multiple rounds of polling, focus groups, campaign consultants, canvassers and server surveys, collectively we have built a grassroots campaign infrastructure far ahead of most other ballot questions. At this point, we are ahead of the opposition in organizing. Nearly 800 servers have signed our petition in opposition. We need funding to keep the momentum going through election day. The cost to run ballot question measures is significantly more expensive than in the past several election cycles.

The entire industry is coalescing in opposition to this question.

To date, the following organizations have endorsed a Vote No on Question 5 and are actively working in opposition:
Massachusetts Restaurants United (MRU)
Massachusetts Brewer’s Guild
Massachusetts Lodging Association
Retailers Association of Massachusetts
National Federation of Independent Businesses
Boston Chamber of Commerce
Worcester Chamber of Commerce
Many regional chambers of commerce

We have lined up elected official support with numerous mayors on board in opposition, with more coming in each day. We have met with multiple unions to have them either get involved on the no side, and for others to stay neutral.

We are the only ballot question nationally for this issue for this election cycle. There has been and will continue to be national support, but we cannot rely on that funding.

Polling shows that with just a little bit of education, voters overwhelmingly vote no on this question. However, without any education and just hearing the question, we are starting from behind.

The ask is simple, we need money to start coming in to make this campaign effective.

Multiple restaurant owners have contributed $50,000 to help the cause, others are at $2,000 per location. The cost to implement this if passed is $18,500 per tipped employee. You can’t afford to not participate.

Let’s all join together and send this group back to California where they came from.

As always, myself and the campaign team are available if you have any questions.

See below for campaign info and wire/ACH instructions.



Thank you,


Stephen Clark
President and CEO
Massachusetts Restaurant Association