Hawkers must operate stalls personally to prevent subletting

Hawker centre stallholders have to operate their stalls personally as a measure to prevent subletting, as this keeps barriers to entry low for small businesses and preserves the authenticity of the hawker culture, said Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Koh Poh Koon in Parliament on March 10.

He was responding to questions from Mr Edward Chia (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) and Workers' Party MP Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) on why the National Environment Agency (NEA) requires stallholders to personally operate their hawker stalls, and if the agency exercises flexibility when hawker stallholders are temporarily unable to operate their stalls.

This comes after a hawker complained in a Facebook post on Feb 18 that he was forced to make his heavily pregnant wife stand at their nasi lemak stall at Yishun Park Hawker Centre.

The hawker said his wife had received an NEA warning for violating the tenancy agreement because the woman, who is the registered stallholder, was not present at the stall.

If the requirement is not imposed, the tenant who has successfully bid for the stall could potentially just sublet it and collect the difference in rent, said Dr Koh, adding that this may encourage people to bid for the stall without the true intention of running it.

He said: "Our aim is to encourage more small businesses to enter the hawker trade because of our low barrier to entry, but not allow chain players to start to dominate our hawker scene and change the texture and authenticity of our hawker culture.

"Hawker centres have played an integral role in nation building and hawker culture has been an important part of our Singapore identity. We want our hawker centres to continue providing opportunities for Singaporeans to directly operate their own small food businesses."

Dr Koh noted that some stalls have been rented out at below the market rate, with the bid being as low as $1.

"What we don't want is for a subletter to then profit from the huge margin by actually extracting rent from a person who's actually interested to run the store and passing the cost subsequently to consumers," said Dr Koh.

As NEA is able to directly monitor whether stallholders physically operate their stalls through inspections, he said a physical presence is the most practical and fair way of ensuring that a stall is not being sublet.

If a tenant is unable to operate the stall, he is expected to return it to NEA, which will then release it for other interested hawkers to bid for it, giving new hawkers a fair chance to enter the trade, said Dr Koh.

If a hawker is unable to operate the stall, such as for medical reasons, he can appoint a joint operator, or a nominee, to operate the store during that period.

Dr Koh added that hawkers who are not able to personally operate their hawker stalls may relinquish their stores or hand them over to a family member.

Mr Chia also said that to grow their business, new hawkers are investing in social media marketing or setting up their own central kitchen, and as a result, may not be physically present at their stall.

He asked if the ministry could exercise some flexibility for hawkers who may need to be away from their stall to attend to these other business activities.

In response, Dr Koh said: "I think if the person has already expanded his business beyond a hawker centre and is very successful, and they have no time to run the store themselves, I think it's only right that they actually relinquish the store to someone else who needs the space and focus on their business instead."

The hawker can nominate a family member to take over the stall, but not someone unrelated, as it opens up the risk of the other person profiteering, he added.

Dr Koh raised the example of Mr Noorman Mubarak, who had complained in a Feb 18 Facebook post that he was forced to make his heavily pregnant wife stand at their nasi lemak stall at Yishun Park Hawker Centre.

Mr Noorman said he and his wife had been managing the Nasi Lemak Ayam Taliwang stall since 2017 and had previously manned it personally. They then let their staff handle the physical work while they looked after the administrative work, among other things.

Dr Koh said NEA has offered that his wife nominate another person to take over the stall while she is pregnant.

"He has two or three stalls in NEA hawker centres, but up to, I think, 21 registered stores in other food and beverage establishments," Dr Koh added.

Dr Koh said that while NEA is happy to see hawkers succeed and expand their businesses, it must also prevent individuals from "gaming the system" through profiteering from subletting.

If rules are not enforced and stalls are allowed to be fully run by hired workers as businesses expand, hawker centres will become indistinguishable from coffee shops and foodcourts, and this will erode their authenticity, he said.

Over time, hawker culture will be diluted as it shifts from passionate hawkers serving their own dishes to customers, to businesses just prioritising efficiency and scale over heritage and quality, he added.

"While we support technology to improve store-level efficiency, we should not do so at the expense of our hawkers stepping away from running the store themselves and letting their workers just take over the day-to-day running and cooking of the food itself," said Dr Koh.

"The reality, therefore, is that we need to balance between protecting our heritage, keeping the food affordable, and ensuring fair opportunities for new hawkers."