COFFEESHOP and restaurant owners in Sibu would rather shut down their business for a month in a complete lockdown rather than have extended business hours under the movement-control order (MCO), according to Tong Ing Kok.

The Sibu Coffee Shop and Restaurant Owners Association chairman said its members would rather shut operations for a month than endure measures that did not seem to bring down Covid-19 infections.

Tong was airing his concerns over the three-digit new Covid-19 cases that have been recorded daily in Sarawak the last few months.

Sibu was also the epicentre of the state’s most deadly cluster, Pasai, which left 30 people dead.

The number of new cases in Sarawak yesterday was 242 with more than 55% recorded in the Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu, Miri and Mukah districts.

There were also two deaths reported, taking the state’s toll to 408.

“I think some of us can survive the shutdown. As things are, many members have said they do not look like they could survive if the MCO is again extended after July 12,” he said.

Tong said in reaction to the announcement by the Sarawak disaster management committee on Monday that the operating hours of eateries and restaurants state-wide have been extended by two hours from 6am-8pm to 6am-10pm from yesterday.

The extension of the business hours was one of the few tweaks made to the standard operating procedure (SOP) of the state’s movement-control order (MCO) that had been extended to July 12.

“We’ve been having this movement-restriction order in varying shapes for a year and a half now and still the infection numbers are high.”

Tong said many of the association’s 300 plus members have been complaining that the constantly changing SOP and movement restrictions have left their business in a limbo.

“We open for business but we can’t have customers eating in. Now they say we can open until 10pm and still not eat in.

“We’re not sure if we will have customers at that late hour especially when these customers cannot even sit down and lepak (hang out) in the shop like they used to.”

Tong also said one of the reasons coffee shop and restaurant owners in Sibu are mulling the proposal is that their average daily takings have plunged by as much as 80% from the pre-Covid-19 level.

“We’re not making much. On average, we make between RM300 to RM400 daily before the pandemic.

Ambiguous SOP have also fuelled the push to take the break, he added.

He was referring to the order for businesses to close at 10pm sharp.

“The SOP says we can operate until 10pm. But can we clean up and ventilate our premises after the closing at 10pm?

“The SOP is unclear on this. If we cannot, it means our operating hours are not exactly extended by two hours.”

Tong said an incident in the peninsula where a coffee shop owner had been compounded for doing the cleaning up after the stipulated operating hours had sent the jitters among association members.

Bandar Kuching MP Kelvin Yii, who sees the extended business hours through the eyes of an epidemiologist, takes a different view of the extended time.

He said the late closing of 10pm should have been implemented from the beginning.

Yii said reducing operating hours leads to congestion.

“One of the benefits of such an extension is that you spread out the crowd, avoiding possible congestion (of people trying to beat the 8pm deadline).

“Now that the hours are extended, orders can be spread out. The public do not have to rush to order and restaurants do not have to rush to finish up all the orders.” – June 30, 2021.