Forum: No incentive to clean coffee shop toilets as patrons interested only in food
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
I refer to the Forum letter “Coffee shops can balance toilet hygiene and costs for better business” (Feb 5).
Lots of coffee shops need repairs but the mentality of coffee shop owners is to save every single cent.
When the Government offered coffee shops 90 per cent co-funding to renovate their toilets, only 44 out of around 1,000 applied.
Why? The owners said everyone in Singapore already knows coffee shop toilets are dirty but that it doesn’t affect business. Coffee shop food is cheap and delicious, which is attractive enough to diners.
To these owners, there is no benefit in cleaning up and that saves $2,000 every month in cleaning expenses.
Enforcement is the only way because there are no economic incentives currently. Shutdowns, naming and shaming would work best.
Jack Sim