Coffee shop staff receive verbal abuse from customers during vaccination status checks

Singapore ― Coffee shop staff are appealing for understanding from customers during vaccination status checks, highlighting they have been on the receiving end of verbal abuse from diners.

Beginning Oct 13, unvaccinated individuals are no longer allowed into shopping malls, large standalone stores, and attractions.

They can only do takeout from hawker centres, and coffee shops – meaning unvaccinated individuals are excluded from dining in – at all food & beverage establishments.

Food establishments without a centralised system to check the vaccination status of customers have to do it manually, whether through the diners’ mobile phones or TraceTogether tokens.

In response to the safe management measures, some members of the public appear to have difficulty complying with the requirements.

An economy rice stall attendant at the Food City coffee shop in Chong Pang shared he would receive verbal abuse at least seven or eight times a day from irritated customers.

“It’s very troublesome because it holds up the line, and it irritates people,” the staff told Today.

He pleaded with diners to be more understanding, as he was just doing his job.

“They still insist that they are vaccinated, and I should let them dine in, but how am I to know? I tell them they can still get a takeaway order, but they get angry and leave without buying anything instead,” said another stall personnel after sharing occasions when the manual checks didn’t yield a verification.

A similar incident circulated on social media on Saturday (Oct 16) involving a partially vaccinated woman making a scene after being refused entry to dine in at Chinatown.

The woman was caught on camera breaking the barricade tape at a food court area and arguing with security staff.

The updated measures were implemented amid spikes in Covid-19 community cases and reduce the strain on the healthcare system. /TISG

Read related: Partially vaccinated grandma making a scene at Chinatown after being denied dine-in entry

Partially vaccinated grandma making a scene at Chinatown after being denied dine-in entry