3/17/2009

Are we turning into robbers?

Yesterday we read about the thugs in Sim Lim Square fleecing on their customers, particularly tourists. And this did not happen yesterday, and not in Sim Lim alone. Today we read about daylight robbery in Newton Hawker Centre. 4 foreigners were literally robbed of $491 by Stall 43, Tanglin Best BBQ Seafood. This was their bill for the food. 8 prawns cost $239 or $30 each. 4 crabs cost $169 or $42 each. And what else? Is this what we have become? These robbers are not only robbing the tourists and foreigners, they are destroying the Singapore brand and livelihoods of the decent people in the same businesses. Do we want the world to know that we are a nation of robbers before something serious is done to curb such abuses? Letting them off with a warning or small fine is not acceptable. They should be made an example of by revoking their business licences. Maybe fleecing is now a way of life as long as someone else has to pay for it. It reminds me of car insurance. Another kind of robbery. And if one looks carefully, robbery is everywhere, some even appeared legal and honourable.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do not think this kind of behavior will stop. Not when they are making that kind of money. A few week's suspension is nothing if you are caught and so they just carry on doing it. It is nothing new.

But, of course, when news of bad behavior like this spreads overseas, the authorities may have to take action.

I hope they give that hawker a long suspension. Slaughter a chicken to teach the monkeys.

Lost Citizen

Anonymous said...

Redbean, you beat me to it! I had thought of sending you an email pointing to this story in today's Shit Times.

According to the report, $48 million of taxpayers' money was spent to "spruce" up the place recently. Yeah right. We, the taxpayers of Sinkapore forked out $48 million so that the thugs who run stall No. 43 can line their pockets with wads of dollars by fleecing tourists and in the process, drag Singapore's name through the sewer. I won't want to go to Arizona anytime soon! The people who run this stall should have their tenancy terminated forthwith so as to send a message to all those louts and touts at this Hawker Centre that they are just hawkers not high priced cuisine houses.

I have no quarrels with spending tax dollars on renovating ordinary hawker centres to feed the ordinary Singaporeans but $48 million to help thugs to enrich themselves?

And remember that the Newton HAWKER centre is under the NEA which is also under...........the $45K Great Immortal Cook wannabe! And he says he has great leadership and his ministry is humming along like a dream? LOL. His ministry which is also responsible for enforcing the ban on smoking in food and entertainment outlets are a joke amongst the KTV lounges, nightclubs and restauarants. When I asked a bar captain whether I could smoke, he looked at me, winked and said, "Go right ahead. Those jokers never come and check anyway. They only know how to stick up Anti smoking posters!"

Bewildered Citizen

Anonymous said...

people are getting slaughter from top and getting away, what will be interesting is to see how bottoms are going to be hanged.

lady justice will it be balance.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

hi Bewildered Citizen, welcome to the blog. i presumed you are not Lost Citizen.

In the past when there were problems, someone will 'nip it in the bud.' Today many things just drag on and on. compare the problem of kidnapping and loanshark. we have more or less solved the kidnapping problem. but we do not seem to be able to solve the loan shark problem.

then we had the gangsters problems. and for many years they were controlled and wiped out to a certain extent. today gangsterism is on the rise again.

but all these bad cheating cases in hawker centres and shopping centres, can we allow them to co exist in our society and think the singapore brand will be untarnished? the private schools that just folded and left the students in the lurch, with money lost, labour and time wasted?

Anonymous said...

Nope, I am not Lost Citizen whose views I have a high regard for. I am another one of Singapore's lost citizen. Not only am I lost in the country I used to know, I am bewildered at how fast it is sliding down the slippery slope towards the bad old days when gangsterism was rampant and when you leave your house in the mornings, you weren't sure whether you would come back to see your family again in the evenings.

I am really bewildered how in a country like Singapore, lesser immortals who probably have no where to turn to for money can be subjected to the kind of harassment perpetuated by loan sharks who seem to be able to get away with it with ease. Either the SPF is inept or for unknown reasons, loan sharks are an acceptable fixture of the ex upbeat economy as with the rampant prostitution in our world famous red light district. Everyone knows that the Chinese mainland gangsters in joint ventures with our local thugs are already muscling in on the scene. But what is being done about it? Just some half hearted raids as happened a couple of days ago at a KTV. We make a big thing about cigarette smuggling busts at the borders but foreigners are touting it openly even in the main streets of Geylang. I really want to ask our honourable Home Minister what the fuck is going on?

Most of the lesser known private schools are fronts for snake heads who bring whores in from the mainland to work in KTV lounges and nightclubs. They enroll in the private schools with fake credentials and gets at least a one year visa to "work" at the lounges and nightclubs. With the opening of the IRs, more private "schools" will be opened to cater for the influx of "students". That's the projection.

This country claims to be a hub for many things. One, it may not want to own up is that it is a regional hub for prostitution.

Singapore WAS a good place to bring up your kids. Nowadays, if you are staying in an HDB apartment, you might just be neighbours to a apartment rented out to house mainland whores swaggering past your door in their high heels and shorts off to another foreign "talent" assignment!

Bewildered Citizen.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

The biggest robbers are the government, but they perpetrate the larceny LEGALLY, and make it ILLEGAL to even criticise them.

During hard times, property theft/fraud/scams increase. It is a correlation which is a result of causality. for e.g. "desperation"

After the recent bushfires in Victoria, scammers set up bogus sites, appealing to people's sympathy and pity in the hope of conning the gullible fools out of their money.

The best way to protect a 'reputation' as precious as, for example, the pristine goodness of the S'pore nation-state, is to deal with the problem by vigilance (personal responsibility) and policing. Then you get a reputation for being 'proactive' regardless of the fact that there is petty crime going on.

Anonymous said...

whats so strange about it??

people follow the lead of their leaders.
pap has taught & shown us that greed is good & u die ur business.

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