KUCHING: Takeaways and deliveries have always been the right move from the start for coffee shop owners, rather than allowing dine-in during the movement control order (MCO) period.
On Saturday (April 25), Malaysia Singapore Coffee Shop Proprietors’ General Association president, Datuk Ho Su Mong said coffee shop owners understood the need to extend the MCO, but would like to suggest that the government consider a new pattern to allow them to ‘survive’.
Ho said that the association is appealing to the government to allow them to make this change so that the MCO’s impact on all in the food and beverage industry would be reduced.
“We would like to advocate ‘a table for one diner’ for dine-in, or at the most for two, in order to keep to the social distancing regulation,” he said in a local news report.
Chairman of Kota Samarahan Municipal Council (MPKS), Datuk Peter Minos, said that takeaways and deliveries of food and drinks are the best option as it doesn’t involve a lot of people.
“We (MPKS) will be very careful, and we do not want any meet-ups or any crowd to gather as we still believe that the people should just stay at home.
“It is okay to suffer for another month or for the whole of month of May as at the end of the day, the Covid-19 chain will be broken and we will be free,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
Minos stated that the suggestion of allowing one customer per table means that the people are giving half-hearted efforts to curb the pandemic, which will make others’ sufferings longer.
“I still think that it is best to keep practising social distancing and for the MCO to be fully enforced as long as the pandemic is still lurking around, therefore we cannot do it half-heartedly.
“But as we can see, the second wave of Covid-19 infections in Singapore is considered the worst in the Asean region — it means something is not working there.
“They (the association) should think their proposal thoroughly first,” he stated.
