So you can...the thing is apparently GL has always had a rule that meals can’t be included in the cost of dues. There has also been an understanding in my lodge that you can speak to the WM and work something out. Like me, since I am in the Army they only charged me the out of state dues of 78$ but I paid for individual meals. We could set dues to 1000$ if we wanted but it just couldn’t include the cost of meals.....as I’m writing this I wonder why when we rewrote our bylaws to fix this we didn’t just take out the part about meals....
I'm no fan of Grand Lodge, and generally don't like them getting involved in much of anything, so take this with a grain of salt, but could the lodge do something where they don't itemize it? Basically, our dues are $240 per year, period. Oh, and by the way, as a courtesy, all our meals are free.
In my college fraternity (which, by the way, the dues were always more than Freemasonry's, which blows my mind when brother complain about expensive dues) we couldn't sell alcohol at our parties (no liquor license). So we always just charged a large cover for the party, and then 'gave away' the beer inside. Seems like a similar idea would work here.