Cracked floor tiles at food court stalls spark safety fears; manager delayed work to avoid weekend business disruption

SINGAPORE: Customers raised safety risks when cracks appeared on the floor tiles at a food court, and there was still no repair made. 

As reported by Shin Min Daily News, a concerned customer shared that the paving stones in front of the Western food stalls and rice noodle stalls at a food court in Punggol have cracks, and he was worried that someone might accidentally fall because of it. 

When a reporter visited the area, the cracked tiles located right in front of the cashier of the Western food stalls were already closed off, but many customers still ordered food. 

It was observed that some of the customers were standing on the damaged floor tiles, and a man suddenly lost his balance while doing so and nearly fell. One of the employees at a Western food stall admitted in an interview that when she was preparing the ingredients in the kitchen, she suddenly heard a loud bang, which was suspected to be a brick burst. She then admitted that there were no more brick bursts after that.

Damaged tiles had an impact on the business 

When the 63-year-old owner of the food stall was contacted, he admitted that the damaged floor tiles had a certain impact on his business. Even though the impact was not high, the business has dropped by about 15%. 

The female manager of the food court also explained that after receiving the complaints, she immediately closed off the area. However, she admitted that she can’t completely restrict the area as it would affect the stall’s business. 

“We have more customers on weekends, and we don’t want to do repairs on weekends, as it would affect our business,” she declared. 

With this, she revealed that repairs will be made on July 1, and the food stalls will be closed for a day. 

Other related news 

In similar news related to food court incidents, there was a report where a food court located in Toa Payoh started to have water leaks from the ceiling due to a burst water pipe, causing the supermarket downstairs to get wet.

A witness shared that when she went to the supermarket, she noticed water dripping from the ceiling. Fortunately, it did not smell anything unusual, and there was no one who got wet. 

Read more about the news story here.