Newton Hawker Rip Off
8 Tiger Prawns for $239. That means each prawn costs about $30 each. WOW. Thats what happened to a few tourists at Singapore’s famous Newton Hawker Centre.
Newton Hawker being one of Singapore’s more popular tourists attraction that serves local cuisines like Satay, BBQ Seafood, etc, should be seriously looked into by the authorities. Singapore Tourist Board (STB) for one should step into this and do a survey on the prices as well as customer satisfaction on the area.
Singapore is well known for our clean and green environment, friendly helpful people. An incident like this with definitely reflect badly on us, and tarnish the countries image. As they say 10 good deeds may not even write off the effect of one bad deed. Besides, Newton Hawker Centre has already been notorious since “the beginning of god knows when”. Very seldom would you see locals going there to eat.
Here’s an interesting comment from Straits Times Online:
“We should rename it Somali Pirates’ Hawker Centre to be fair to newcomers but that would be unfair to decent folk running other stalls there. Decades ago when hawkers were first relocated to Newton from Koek Rd carpark in Orchard Rd, they were ALREADY complaining about affording only Jap cars versus Mercedeces they owned when leeching on tourists and locals at Orchard Rd! So what’s new about hawker greed – they want to own yachts and planes now?”
Full Comments can be read here and some are really interesting!
March 19th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Today’s report states NEA has officially came down hard on the Stall that ripped off the tourists. The stall is forced to be shut down for 3 months, while the staff who served the tourist is barred from the working in the food centre for one year.
Though the report didn’t state is any compensation was done for the american victims.
My take is this action by the NEA only solves the surface of the issue. The root still lies with the culture of Newton Food Centre, and possibly also due to the high rental. Even if this stall is punished this time round, it doesn’t mean they wont commit the same offence again, or other stall holders to continue cheating.