Planners of F&B outlets in residential estates can learn from Joo Chiat experience

Source : Straits Times - 2 Sep 2008

I REFER to the call by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) last Saturday for views on F&B outlets located near residential estates (’Music and F&B close to home?’).

Visions of ‘violinists serenading diners nightly and rock bands playing to bar flies’ seem idealistic and romanticised at best, in Singapore’s context. If and when the URA does decide to tweak its planning guidelines, I hope it learns from the experiences and ongoing feedback from residents in Joo Chiat.

In a best-case scenario, the authorities may create a good buzz as in Holland Village and Siglap. If the areas are left unchecked and unenforced however, residents will have to deal with what Joo Chiat residents experience every evening in the past seven to eight years - an influx of prostitutes and their clients; ‘coffee shops’ that sell nothing but alcohol and peanuts; litter and cigarette butts outside the bars; vomit and urine in the back alleys and on the pavements; and residents fearful for the safety of their children and female family members. This is in addition to tables and chairs crowding the narrow five-foot ways illegally, fire-safety violations, noisy karaoke sessions and leftover food wiped off dining tables and into the street.

Joo Chiat residents have worked closely with grassroots leaders and the authorities to keep the sleaze and litter to certain parts of the neighbourhood over the years. Unfortunately, the damage to the reputation of Joo Chiat has yet to heal, and new businesses continue to find loopholes in the authorities’ moratorium on bars and massage parlours in the neighbourhood by setting up ‘beer gardens’ and ‘cafes’ which are nothing more than fronts for Vietnamese and Filipino prostitutes to ply their trade. Art galleries and lifestyle boutiques are taking over some of the bars and massage parlours. But will they last with the continuing proliferation of sleaze? Will families and residents from all over the island converge here to patronise more legitimate businesses when sex-trade workers solicit outside the bars?

Considering the rich Peranakan and Malay cultural heritage that makes up the tapestry of Joo Chiat, the neighbourhood could have been as successful and iconic as Jonker Street in Malacca or GeorgeTown in Penang. Unfortunately, mismanagement mean residents have to live with the arduous task of repairing the damage.

I hope that, in considering the relaxation of rules on F&B outlets in other residential estates, the URA can ensure sleaze does not permeate the areas it has earmarked, with the ‘buzz’ it is trying to create.

Lee Chin Chye