Look at the picture. This employee of a mamak restaurant was caught in the act. He wasn't too pleased when he realised his action was being photographed.
It was only 6:30pm and he is already at it at Medan Idaman. Here you can see he is marking his territory - putting chairs and tables on parking lots so that he will have extra serving space.
Not only is he depriving motorists of parking lots, he is also causing congestion because motorists have no choice but to double park by the lots he had booked.
This had been a regular occurrence in Medan Idaman, at Gombak Fifth Mile. Both the front and in the middle lanes. These restaurateurs have no respect for other people's businesses or the law and one wonders why the full weight of the law did not come down hard on them. Come on City Hall!
Many shop owners have confided that the congestion and lack of parking space had caused a drop in their businesses. A clinic nearby is also affected tremendously by the action of these selfish restaurant operators. Severely-ill patients were forced to walk several hundred metres away to the clinics because there were simply no parking space. I wonder why the other affected businesses bother to pay assessment fees when City Hall did not look after their interests.
Why can't they take up the parking lots after say 9pm when businesses start to close and nightlife kicks in? The restaurateurs would have the entire Medan Idaman to themselves and no one would raise an eyebrow.
4 comments:
There is another one at the back lane, near Plaza Idaman. This mamak occupies the corner lot near a clinic. By 6pm, they would arrange tables and chairs on the road, not that they have any competitor near them. Just pure selfishness and inconsiderate. Sometimes I see sick people who can hardly walk being forced to walk from far away from their parking lot because the parking lot in front of the clinic was blocked by the mamak. City Hall is also useless as I have not seen them act on this, although I have seen their officers patrol the area. Hey, you should write to Wee Chu Kiong MP (for Wangsa Maju) for help. Just a idea.
They all do this everywhere. It all started with a few shops doing it, and the enforcement wallahs closed one eye, then more did it, and more and more. so now it has become a disease among not just the mamaks but others as well. Remember not so long ago the government passed a regulation that no table should be placed on the road after somebody was killed? What happens now?
This booking of parking lots by restaurateurs, or any business outlets, transcends any ethnicity. I believe this is a perennial problem in any city in Malaysia.
As you have put it aptly, this action always leads to parking woes and the ripple effect would be a drop in business to some non-restaurant outlets in the vicinity.
The bigger picture here is why the authorities aren’t doing anything about this. Close one eye or heads turn the other way for reason best known to them. Not even a tragedy or loss of human life will correct the way these little Napoleon operate, sigh! Remember the case in PJ where this car ploughs into a group pf diners? Case is still on-going.
I’ve now taken to cycling when I need to run some errands at Medan Idaman or Prima Setapak – beats looking for a parking spot!!
Smart thing sibuk-sibuk, to cycle to run errands. Be careful though because the road widening is causing havoc to traffic and some reckless driver think it is cute using the gravelled runs beside the roads!
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