36 F&B outlets ordered to close, 3 nightlife outlets have food licences revoked for COVID-19 breaches

SINGAPORE: The Kopitiam outlet at Tampines Mall and the Toast Box outlet at City Square Mall were among 36 food and beverage outlets ordered to close for breaches of COVID-19 safe management measures since mid-September.

Food licences for three pivoted nightlife establishments were also permanently revoked, the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) said in a news release on Friday (Oct 8). Another 21 F&B outlets were also given fines for breaching the measures.

The 36 outlets were ordered to close for breaches such as allowing customers to play card games on the premises, failing to ensure that they adhered to the permitted group size and failing to ensure a safe distance of at least 1m between groups.

Also on the list are the Malaysia Boleh outlet at AMK Hub, Killiney Kopitiam at Lucky Plaza and Pizzamaru at Jewel Changi Airport.

Four outlets were found to have allowed individuals without a cleared status to enter or remain within their premises to consume food or drinks.

Luci’s Kitchen at Lucky Plaza and New Shapla Restaurant at Desker Road were ordered to close for 10 days, while Purn Rao KTV & Pub at Golden Mile Complex and Yong Xing Mei Wei at PLQ were each fined S$1,000.

Cleared status refers to those who are fully vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19 and can provide a valid pre-event test (PET) exemption notice or have a valid negative PET result from a Ministry of Health approved test provider within the last 24 hours.

The nightlife establishments that had their food licences permanently revoked were found to be operating with dine-in patrons despite not being allowed to re-open, MSE said.

The outlets are Moung Sakhon and Prajin Karaoke, both at 5001 Beach Road, as well as Parklato at Parklane Shopping Mall.

Composition fines were also handed out to 19 other F&B outlets for various offences on their premises.

These include gathering in groups larger than the permitted size, playing music or video recordings, allowing singing, failing to ensure that workers wore masks, failing to ensure contact tracing was done for employees and failing to ensure a safe of at least 1m between seated customers.

The full list of penalised F&B outlets can be found here.

The ministry reminded both operators and patrons that strict compliance with safe management measures, including those that are vaccination differentiated, is "critical for everyone's safety".

"Agencies will continue to step up checks on F&B and pivoted nightlife establishments to ensure that VDS and SMMs are strictly adhered to.

“Firm enforcement action will be taken against operators and individuals who do not comply with (safe management measures).”