Beleaguered Restaurant Owners Urge Govt To Allow Couple Dine In

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Persatuan Pengguna Melayu Malaysia (PPMM) president Che Hassan Che Johan has appealed to the government not to completely restrict dining-in at restaurants under the latest movement control order (MCO) but to consider allowing groups of two instead.
"Since last year's MCO, there have been many restaurants that were affected by the decision not to allow restaurants to operate dine-in during that period.

"Once allowed to operate, even with a limited number under SOPs, restaurant operators could breathe a sigh of relief as they could run their businesses as usual even with sharply reduced income.
"Bearing this in mind, PPMM would like to appeal to the government to allow restaurants to operate with a limit of two persons per table," Che Hassan said in a statement today.
The president of the Malay consumers' society said this way, affected traders get an income boost from physical operations as well as from take-aways.
He argued that if Ramadan bazaars and night markets were allowed to operate with strict SOPs, then dine-in restaurants should be allowed to do so as well.
"As usual, compliance with the standard operating procedure (SOP) in each restaurant will be implemented in an effort to curb Covid-19 infection in the country," he said.
His views were echoed by Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owners Association (Primas) president J Suresh who made the same appeal, saying it would have a bad effect on the economy if restaurants were not allowed to operate with dine-in options.
"It will add more stress to operators as we are already suffering after 14 months and MCO 3.0 will lead to a worse impact.
"This will result in the closing of many outlets permanently and operators can't even meet their basic needs for their employees and themselves.
"A minimum seating of two customers per table will at least enable them to support their daily management expenses," Suresh said.

An MCO was called for six districts in Selangor effective today and will take effect in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

Among the measures announced by Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob were no dine-in allowed for restaurants and food stalls that may provide take-away services from 6am to 12am.
Ismail also announced an MCO for the districts of Johor Bahru, Kulai, and Kota Tinggi in Johor and Taiping in Perak.
He also announced MCOs for 14 sub-districts in Besut, Terengganu, namely Kampung Raja, Lubuk Kawah, Pelagat, Tenang, Keluang, Bukit Kenak, Kubang Bemban, Jabi, Kerandang, Pengkalan Nangka, Pasir Akar, Tembila, Bukit Puteri, and Kuala Besut. - Mkini

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