Pay up even thou there's fire alarm

[damien]

TodayOnline, June 24, 2005

Fire! But they were told to pay first before leaving

Staff of restaurant blocked evacuating customers

I REFER to the small fire that broke out at Plaza Singapura on Tuesday night. While it was rather scary being at the scene, I thought the building's staff and management reacted quickly and professionally.

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However, I'd like to draw attention to a dangerous and irresponsible act by one tenant.

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A friend and I were having dinner at the Swensen's restaurant when the fire broke out.

Our dinner had only just been served and we had barely started eating, but it was smoking and there were requests on the public address system for everyone to leave immediately.

So, the customers in Swensen's got up to evacuate the site.

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At this point, the staff of Swensen's blocked the way and insisted we pay before leaving.

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This meant that around 30 people had to wait in line to pay, when the building had already been evacuated and smoke was filling the restaurant!

The manager told us they were given 15 minutes to collect payment before allowing us to leave.

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The 15 minutes could easily have cost lives. What if something had exploded? Or if children had passed out from smoke inhalation?

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I am disgusted at this ridiculous prioritising of money over life. I hope something can be done to prevent such irresponsible acts from occurring again.

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Letter from NICHOLAS TAN WEN-YU

[ervine]

tsk tsk.... shame on them...

[flying carpet]

Now that's the way to piss someone off. Shame on swensen's

[Lester]

report it SCDF.. The rest or fire safety mang... will get a heavy fine for it .....

[ervine]

what if I only half my meal? do I pay half? or pay full but come back after the fire to finish it up?

[Melvyn Tan]

Wow just been there today and had desserts after dim sum.

Well for those who wanna make them pay...do a lodgement to FSSB and investigation will be made on the Plaza Sg guys on whether safety and evacuation protocol has been breached - rest assured they will get a damn heavy fine

[subxero]

Wah lau.. like that also can request to "da bao" the remaining, since you already paid for the food..

[madman]

Tat was definately very unprofessional of Swensens. To collect the payments 1st could actually cause lost of lives. Which is more important? $$ or life? Wat people should do is to stop going there and the affected people should lodge a complaint to SCDF, CASE and Swensen's HQ. The manager should be shot. A big portion of people who died in fire outbreaks is killed not by the fire itself, it is actually by inhaling the smoke.

As a manager, he should be liable for the safety of his staffs and the public who patronise the resturant.

So, to the manager: Please stand out and explain to the public and justify for your action.!

[wil_lee76]

i think u should write to them for a explaination. If there no repiled, shoot it on Straits Times or Today , i can only said that maybe you are not the only one who "kana". And it's really that bad for Swensen to behave in this manner. Shame on the manager and swensen!

[flying carpet]

Looks like someones in trouble.

[Melvyn Tan]

I think there was a formal apology in the papers already.

Yesterday, i had a 10-20% off in my bill, thought it was because of my card

but could have been the "goodwill discount".....did some foolish act and then

thereafter try to win customers by losing DISCOUNTS to all patrons.

Wondered if they had brought all the collected money out of the building or

left it at the cashiering machine (apart from the card payment type).

If there is no POS system, wondered if there is anyone in there that have

strike a small pile from the evacuation...hmmmmm

[ervine]

OOoo.. imagine if i were at pro-photo trying out one of their digital medium formats.. then fire break out... run off with a 19k camera.. woohoo

[Lester]

OOoo.. imagine if i were at pro-photo trying out one of their digital medium formats.. then fire break out... run off with a 19k camera.. woohoo

hehe nice try ....

[XPeriment 626]

OOoo.. imagine if i were at pro-photo trying out one of their digital medium formats.. then fire break out... run off with a 19k camera.. woohoo

if there was a massive fire then you could get away. if it is a small fire like that day, they just go back and check CCTV, then you can play wif your camera in CHANGI PRISON loh

[wil_lee76]

if there was a massive fire then you could get away. if it is a small fire like that day, they just go back and check CCTV, then you can play wif your camera in CHANGI PRISON loh

then you can do all the photo shoot at Changi hotel liao!!

[mUAr_cHEe]

swensen apology....

but guessed we all missed it....

2506VRW017.pdf

[Chris]

Swensons or the manager is damn stupid. Assuming the 30 people spends an average of $20....that means $600 in total. To breach fire safety regulations and antagonise the patrons and get bad reputation for $600 bucks is senseless. They will lose business amounting to many times of $600.

I for one would think twice about visiting Swenson from now.