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As if the pandemic wasn’t enough for street hawkers, they are now facing a rental hike. Those at a coffeeshop in Toa Payoh informed that under the new management, their rental will double! One of the uncles had his rent hike from $3000 to $6000. This is daylight robbery!
Rent will be increased from June 1, 2022. The owner of the coffeeshop also said that similar requirements on suppliers will be enforced in other places. The two-fold rental hike has forced half of the stall holders there not to renew their contracts.
This is truly heartbreaking because most of the stalls have been operating there for more than a decade. They belong to the pioneering street food culture, which is well-known world over.
It seems like when low-wage workers needed assistance, the people they believed can help them betrayed them and made their lives more difficult. It is law-makers who turn a blind eye and deaf ear to their livelihoods. Ironically, the people in power say that it is done for economic benefits, but why does it seem like it benefits them only?
We all know that our rich street food culture cannot be replicated. Be it citizens or tourists, everyone flock to them when we want good food in Singapore. The taste and history of their food is indisputable and unparalleled. Plucking hawkers from their roots is like erasing an important chapter from our history.
Why can’t our government see that?
On social media, people expressed sympathy for stall holders and hawkers. Even millennials felt strongly about it:
“Rental indeed kills the hawker culture!”
“Let this be the decline of coffeeshop…”
“If this keeps going on and on, Singapore hawker stalls will be extinct soon.”
We agree too. If the government continues to increase rentals without consideration for stall owners, there’ll be nothing left of our UNESCO hawker culture. Is that what they want to see?
