Numbered tables at food court soon

Well patronised: Datuk Tiong and Datuk Wong gesture after meeting customers at the food court.

SIBU: Patrons of the central market food court will soon be able to sit anywhere they like once Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) numbers the tables.

Under this new arrangement, customers can take any table and make their order from any stalls.

Presently, tables are assigned to their respective stalls, therefore an order can be made to the stall that owns the table.

This is not only inconvenience to customers but also can lead to unhealthy business rilvary among the operators.

Central Market Hawkers Association chairman Yiing Chung Hiing, in welcoming the new system yesterday, said: “Hawkers here often quarrelled, accusing each other of customer-pinching when customers took their table but ordered from elsewhere.

“At one time, two of the hawkers were suspended by SMC for fighting over the issue of customer-pinching.”

Yiing said this to reporters during a visit to the market by SMC chairman Datuk Tiong Thai King and his deputy Datuk Wong Kee Yew, to see the progress of the repainting of the ceiling and cleaning of the floor of the food court.

Yiing said he was told by SMC that the numbering system would be implemented once the 300 units of square tables and the accompanying chairs — four to a table — were put in place.

Meanwhile, Tiong said SMC’s Market and Petty Traders Standing Committee would hold a meeting soon to decide how to solve the heat problem in the food court.