In society, we require that restaurants that serve food also to also provide free water to anyone who asks because not everything should be commidified.
In the US, all restaurants provide free water, voluntarily---it is not a law. It is a custom because we are not raging assholes. And if people are treated badly at a restaurant, they don't come back.
I have never not been able to get free water in a restaurant in the US. Usually they pour you some without even asking, if there is table service.
Only in Europe is there a perception that (a) businesspeople are raging assholes who (b) want to screw their customers even though doing so drives them away. So only in Europe are there actual laws forcing restaurants to give out water.
You can easily find more sources if you just Google "Are US restaurants required to provide water."
So yeah, your point is completley incorrect.
Also, I am actually trying to intellectually engage with the issue, and it seems like you're just making a pithy comment, but maybe I'm just misreading your intention.
Only in Europe is there a perception that (a) businesspeople are raging assholes who (b) want to screw their customers even though doing so drives them away. So only in Europe are there actual laws forcing restaurants to give out water.
Well... looking at your own source one would have to be really naive not to think that businesspeople are raging assholes.
Water charges from five cents to a dollar for a glass of water with some restaurants charging even if you did not order water!
That's almost the definition of businesspeople being assholes and wanting to screw their customers!
The article you linked is saying the opposite of what you are writing here, look at the second paragraph, some restaurants are indeed doing it. You need this consumers laws because otherwise some people are going to take advantage of it, that's how it works.
Some restaurants do charge for water (when you order it). AFAIK, in most (all?) states, they are not obligated to provide it for free beyond any applicable municipal codes that may or may not mandate publicly accessible water fountains.
My intention was only to point out that some things are free for moral reasons. Not every rule of society is a law per se, if some one asks you for a cup of water and you don't give it to them you're probably kind of a dick, right?
