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When it opens next month, Vancouver Island’s Smoke ‘N Water restaurant may be the first in Canada to institute a no-tipping policy — a trend that one expert says may well spread thanks to a climate of “tipping fatigue.”

During the past couple of years, restaurants have been trying to control the well-entrenched social norm by slapping auto-gratuities on large parties and prompting tips via debit and credit terminals that automatically asks the diner tip after tax, said Bruce McAdams, a professor of tourism and hospitality at the University of Guelph, who studies tipping behaviour.

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This system is messed up

That, combined with a wider trend toward a more rule-driven restaurant environment in which the chef wants diners to eat the meal the way he or she created it, has resulted in a tense exchange in which both diners and servers and restaurateurs feel under pressure.

“It’s a cultural norm in the industry: We have tipping, we don’t think about it, we work with it, we live with it, we make the best,” he said. “[Now] these guys are coming in from outside and saying ‘This system is messed up — not only does it not do the things it’s supposed to, but it creates a lot of really negative ramifications for the organizations.'”