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Safety cordon against being firebombed?
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Parking cordon as bad as tissue paper reservation
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->LAST Saturday, I drove my family to Toa Payoh Lorong 5 to have dinner at the hawker centre at Block 75. Some 20 parking spaces were cordoned off with red plastic chairs and manned by parking wardens from Chubb. I was puzzled as it was dinner time and it was difficult to find a parking space.
Curious, I asked one of the parking wardens the reason and whether I could park there to go for a quick family meal at the hawker centre. Her reply was that I could not as the spaces were being reserved for an event involving a Member of Parliament. She told me to park at a multi-storey carpark 15 minutes away.
After a long wait, I found a parking space. At the hawker centre, I read a banner advertising a Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC tree-planting day, which was to start the next morning at 8.30am.
Why would the group representation constituency (GRC) send traffic wardens to reserve public carpark spaces for an event happening only a day later?
And why must the GRC cordon 20 parking spaces if only one MP was the VIP? Were 20 VIPs invited?
The parking wardens were a sorry sight as they had to endure angry remarks from motorists as well as the rain, to make sure that no one used the parking spaces.
Such a practice is no different from boorish customers placing packets of tissue paper on tables in hawker centres to reserve the seats. I hope the practice at Toa Payoh is not repeated at other similar events.
Jonathan Yeo
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Parking cordon as bad as tissue paper reservation
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->LAST Saturday, I drove my family to Toa Payoh Lorong 5 to have dinner at the hawker centre at Block 75. Some 20 parking spaces were cordoned off with red plastic chairs and manned by parking wardens from Chubb. I was puzzled as it was dinner time and it was difficult to find a parking space.
Curious, I asked one of the parking wardens the reason and whether I could park there to go for a quick family meal at the hawker centre. Her reply was that I could not as the spaces were being reserved for an event involving a Member of Parliament. She told me to park at a multi-storey carpark 15 minutes away.
After a long wait, I found a parking space. At the hawker centre, I read a banner advertising a Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC tree-planting day, which was to start the next morning at 8.30am.
Why would the group representation constituency (GRC) send traffic wardens to reserve public carpark spaces for an event happening only a day later?
And why must the GRC cordon 20 parking spaces if only one MP was the VIP? Were 20 VIPs invited?
The parking wardens were a sorry sight as they had to endure angry remarks from motorists as well as the rain, to make sure that no one used the parking spaces.
Such a practice is no different from boorish customers placing packets of tissue paper on tables in hawker centres to reserve the seats. I hope the practice at Toa Payoh is not repeated at other similar events.
Jonathan Yeo
(And don't imagine parking charges can be waived or refunded after you're blown up.)
