36 F&B Outlets, Including a Kopitiam Outlet & a Toast Box Outlet, Ordered to Close For Breaking COVID-19 Rules

Returning to eateries to dine out has been a real pleasure.

As you know, all individuals, regardless of vaccination status, can dine in at hawker centres and coffee shops in groups of up to two.

The same group size limit applies to dining in at restaurants, but only to fully vaccinated individuals.

We’ve certainly missed eating out with our friends and family, as is evident in eateries now.

But some of us have gotten a little carried away at these establishments, and the owners have apparently not done enough to stop them.

36 F&B Outlets Ordered to Close For Breaking COVID-19 Rules

It’s clear now: F&B establishments that think they can get away with breaking the rules are sorely mistaken.

Since mid-September, various agencies have checked more than 600 F&B premises and over 900 individuals for breaches of Safe Management Measures (SMMs) and Vaccination Differentiated SMMs (VDS).

Through this operation, the agencies found 57 errant establishments; 36 were ordered to close and 21 fined, according to a media release by the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE).

34 of the errant establishments were ordered to close for breaches such as:

• allowing customers to play card games on the premises
• failing to ensure customers adhered to the permitted group size
• failing to ensure a safe distance of at least 1 metre between groups of customers

I mean, some of the rules were in place since last year, so you can’t really plead ignorance.

Another 19 F&B outlets were fined for various breaches including:

• allowing gatherings in groups larger than the permitted group size
• playing music or video recordings and allowing singing
• failing to ensure workers wore masks
• failing to ensure contact tracing was done for employees
• failing to ensure a safe distance of at least 1 metre between seated customers

The other four F&B outlets were found to have permitted individuals entry without a cleared status.

In order to get cleared status, an individual must either be fully vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19 and provide a valid pre-event test (PET) exemption notice, or have a valid negative PET result from an MOH-approved test provider within the last 24 hours.

So, who was caught?

Kopitiam Outlet & Toast Box Outlet Ordered to Close

Among the outlets ordered to close was Toast Box’s outlet at City Square Mall.

For failing to ensure safe distancing of at least 1 metre between groups of customers on multiple occasions, it had to close for 10 days from 2 Oct to 11 Oct.

A Kopitiam outlet at Tampines was flagged for the same offence, but was ordered to close for 20 days as it was a repeat offender.

Other establishments that were closed include Malaysia Boleh at AMK Hub and Sushiro at Lot One Shoppers’ Mall.

Outlets that were fined included Dumpling Darlings at Amoy Street and Kaffe & Toast and Singpost Centre.

Three nightlife establishments also had their licences permanently revoked, as they were found operating even though they were not allowed to reopen.

They are Moung Sakhon, Prajin Karaoke, and Parklato.

The ministry reminded both operators and patrons to adhere to the rules in place and warned that firm enforcement action will be taking against those who don’t comply.

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Featured Image: Singapore Food Agency