There is a very disturbing trend going on , in the Penang kopitiam scene these days .
Partly caused by the rising rental and council bylaws , restrictions and Unesco stipulations , 3 things , 3 trends , 3 after effects , are happening today .
This is so glaringly obvious and yet , the PCCC feel they need to conduct a study over why this is happening . Sometimes I really wonder if they ever live on the island or only dine in CRC and the like .
Reference to PCCC : http://thesundaily.my/node/406805
Anyway , the Root Cause of the 3 After Effects ( which I shall list out below ) is
cost ... money....duit .
You need A LOT of money to renovate and replicate period tiles as well as , import similar looking fixtures , beams , frames or artisanal craftmanship .
A heck of a lot more money than any Ahpek or Mamak businessman is willing to part with .
Anything from half a million upwards to around 2 million ringgit . Two million ringgit ought to do it .
Which brings us to , the after effects of not being willing to spend so much or being able to be in complete compliance of , in order to get the required approval to redo the shophouse to Unesco standards .
Here they are in my " laywoman from the street " terms .
cost ... money....duit .
You need A LOT of money to renovate and replicate period tiles as well as , import similar looking fixtures , beams , frames or artisanal craftmanship .
A heck of a lot more money than any Ahpek or Mamak businessman is willing to part with .
Anything from half a million upwards to around 2 million ringgit . Two million ringgit ought to do it .
Which brings us to , the after effects of not being willing to spend so much or being able to be in complete compliance of , in order to get the required approval to redo the shophouse to Unesco standards .
Here they are in my " laywoman from the street " terms .
One .
Give up the business entirely .
Sell the property off , if they own the shoplot . Let the legend die off by itself . Allow the place to go to rot .
In the case of Keng Kwee kopitiam , ( don't get me wrong , they did not give up yet , just using this as one example where using cheap alternatives to renovate can reduce you to ruins ) the council moved in to demolish whatever renovations had been done to spruce up the badly decaying shop . Because the kopitiam is completely protected under Unesco , the owner could only repair the toilet or do rewiring but was not allowed to reno . At all . Go see the kopitiam for yourself when you come back . The officers put a sledgehammer to most everything . Makes me wonder how that Teluk Intan eggtart operator next door as well as the Jeruk many doors away near Chowrasta , got away with what they did .
Keng Kwee finally managed to get approval to operate . The other shops in this row have suddenly been given the green light . Makes me wonder what the Hongkie owners had to do in order to get the nod .
Two
Sublet or Sell
Continue riding on the legacy by subletting out the premise to some sub standard operator who doesn't give a damn if your kopi tastes like longkang chui . Or sell the branding to completely useless , obviously should not be given any license to cook , operators who offer them tons of cash in return ( because some say this offers them a legitimate avenue to launder their ill gotten monies ). Doesn't matter if they cannot cook since tourists and out of state visitors are targetted . Making money out of suckers is the bottomline . And tripadvisor reviews can be faked through various accounts in case you didn't know that .
Three
Hostile takeover
Force their most popular hawker stall tenants to hand over operations of their stall to them . Yeah a hostile takeover . I know of 4 hugely popular hawkers who were forced out this way .
They will state their intentions , offer them a sum of money to learn the recipe , raise the rent , kick them out , then take over the stall or shoplot .
Yep , this is the disturbing trend I am referring to in particular .
Don't want to name the stalls here as I still patronise and have followed these hawkers but have altogether given up on the kopitiams out of disgust .
Hope this explains why we have to travel further nowadays to eat .
If your regular haunt sucks , or has vanished from radar , there you have it . Mystery solved .
What study do you need ? You want to know facts , you need to get out there and talk to these hawkers more often .
But please don't grill them , you're not going to be able to extract anything with intense grilling .
If they do not want to interact with you , then you must either have a face problem , are quite rude , maybe even arrogant to a certain extent , kinda weird , cannot speak the local lingo , nor understand the subtle mannerisms ,
or ..... the hawker himself is not a local or a northerner to begin with and he does not want you to find out .
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