Jollibee Foods Corp. (JFC) was one of the businesses recently fined $1000 by the Singaporean government for violating social distancing measures amid the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The other businesses were Putien at 127 Kitchener Road and Komala’s Vege Mart Pte Ltd at 125 Dunlop Street.
Enforcement checks were conducted in Singapore from April 10-12, 2020. According to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Jollibee’s Woodlands MRT branch next to Causeway Point, as well as the aforementioned Putien and Komala’s Vege Mart Pte Ltd branches, failed to enforce proper safe distancing measures despite earlier warnings.
“The infringements included failure to implement crowd management system and allowing customers and delivery personnel to crowd together without 1-metre spacing between one another,” the STB and ESG explained in a statement. “If these stores continue to flout the rules, they will face higher fines and can be charged in court.”
On April 14, 2020, the JFC apologized for the incident. The company explained that on April 12, 2020, one of the staff members at the Woodlands MRT branch was unable to fully control the queue “due to a strong surge in delivery orders and a corresponding increase in third-party delivery riders in the store.”
Owned by JFC, Jollibee is a Filipino multinational chain of fast food restaurants with presence in Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. The first branch in Singapore was opened in 2013.
As of April 13, 2020, Singapore listed 2, 918 confirmed COVID-19 cases. A total of 586 recovered from the infection and there were nine deaths related to the virus.
As a mandatory requirement from the STB and ESG, customers should wear masks when visiting supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies and malls in Singapore. The requirement took effect on April 12, 2020.
CONAN Daily 