A customer had queued up at a chicken rice stall at People’s Park Food Centre on 11 January at about 7pm wanting to pay for his food with his CDC voucher(s) that was issued earlier this month.
However, the hawker at Dong Dong Hainanese Chicken Rice had allegedly rejected his CDC vouchers due to their scanning machine breaking down, and also allegedly mocked him by saying “don’t eat if you have no money,” according to Shin Min Daily News.
SMDN reported that the customer, Mr Lai, had queued up at the stall intending to use his vouchers, and noticed that the stall had a sticker stating their acceptance of the CDC vouchers.
He wanted to use his vouchers for his $5.50 meal, but the staff rejected his vouchers – Lai then disputed their rejection, pointing out the sticker that was displayed.
The staff then claimed that their scanning machine had broken down, and as they got into an argument, the staff allegedly mocked him by telling him “don’t eat if you don’t have money.”
Seeing that there was a queue behind him, Lai then relented and paid for his meal with cash.
Staff shares his side of the story
The cashier working at the stall, Guo, told SMDN that their stall’s tablet that was used to scan the voucher’s QR code had not been working for about a week and was being repaired at the time.
As a result, only his mobile phone could be used to scan the code, but at the time of the incident, Guo was not at the stall and nobody was able to scan the QR code.
He said that “I can’t possibly leave my phone at the stall while I’m away”.
He added that he will feedback the complaint to his boss, and said that maybe his colleagues were too busy at the time, and that “we always welcome customers to pay with the vouchers”.