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A man irked patrons of the crowded Golden Shoe Food Centre in Raffles Place on Tuesday afternoon, telling a number of them not to reserve seats by placing packets of tissue paper on tabletops.
"He was pointing at seats and asking why people were using tissue packets (to reserve seats)," said manager Tan Li-Lin, 28, who was among those approached by the man.
Ms Tan had been eating alone, seated beside two empty seats which were "reserved" with tissue packets.
"My first thought was that this guy had obviously never had to deal with the lunch-time rush before," said Ms Tan.
The food centre is popular with office workers in the Central Business District who throng the place at lunch-time as it offers a cheaper variety of food.
The practice of "reserving" seats with tissue packets has been a bugbear of office workers there for years.
The man, Ms Tan said, had identified himself as a National Environment Agency (NEA) officer and flashed what appeared to be a warrant card.
He is believed to be in his 30s and was dressed in jeans. "His tone sounded a little irritated and he was speaking quite loudly," she said.
Riled patrons were overheard complaining about his audacity as they had never encountered a similar incident before.
In a statement yesterday, an NEA spokesman clarified that the man is an environmental-health officer in charge of the food centre and was doing his routine check during lunch hour that day.
He added that the officer had acted on "public feedback" that patrons were reserving seats at the food centre with tissue packets and, "out of good intention", had "advised patrons to be considerate to others".
But the spokesman pointed out that NEA does not have a policy against patrons reserving seats in hawker centres as this is on a first-come, first-served basis.
"However, patrons should always be considerate to others when sharing the facilities,"he added.
While NEA did not clarify the specifics of the officer's job scope, Singapore Kindness Movement general secretary William Wan said: "The fact that the gentleman took ownership of the problem and tried to make a difference is commendable.
"But we have to be very careful that we distinguish between our personal capacity and our capacity as an officer of a particular organisation or ministry."
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110728-291407.html
"He was pointing at seats and asking why people were using tissue packets (to reserve seats)," said manager Tan Li-Lin, 28, who was among those approached by the man.
Ms Tan had been eating alone, seated beside two empty seats which were "reserved" with tissue packets.
"My first thought was that this guy had obviously never had to deal with the lunch-time rush before," said Ms Tan.
The food centre is popular with office workers in the Central Business District who throng the place at lunch-time as it offers a cheaper variety of food.
The practice of "reserving" seats with tissue packets has been a bugbear of office workers there for years.
The man, Ms Tan said, had identified himself as a National Environment Agency (NEA) officer and flashed what appeared to be a warrant card.
He is believed to be in his 30s and was dressed in jeans. "His tone sounded a little irritated and he was speaking quite loudly," she said.
Riled patrons were overheard complaining about his audacity as they had never encountered a similar incident before.
In a statement yesterday, an NEA spokesman clarified that the man is an environmental-health officer in charge of the food centre and was doing his routine check during lunch hour that day.
He added that the officer had acted on "public feedback" that patrons were reserving seats at the food centre with tissue packets and, "out of good intention", had "advised patrons to be considerate to others".
But the spokesman pointed out that NEA does not have a policy against patrons reserving seats in hawker centres as this is on a first-come, first-served basis.
"However, patrons should always be considerate to others when sharing the facilities,"he added.
While NEA did not clarify the specifics of the officer's job scope, Singapore Kindness Movement general secretary William Wan said: "The fact that the gentleman took ownership of the problem and tried to make a difference is commendable.
"But we have to be very careful that we distinguish between our personal capacity and our capacity as an officer of a particular organisation or ministry."
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110728-291407.html
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