www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20120424-341770.html
The New Paper
Thursday, Apr 26, 2012
Go to the blocks at Klang Lane in Little India and you may find
something odd among the normal shoe racks and clothes lines.
You are likely to see trolleys from the nearby Mustafa
Centre.
And the fact that some of their neighbours in Blocks 671A, 671B,
672A, and 672B are taking the trolleys home and parking them
indiscriminately in the corridors are annoying some residents
there.
Mrs Ashley Lim, 37, who lives in Block 672B, said that her
neighbour has been taking shopping trolleys to their home
upstairs.
"I'll see a trolley from Mustafa once every two or three months.
When they leave it on the corridor alongside their laundry and baby
strollers, it creates a fire hazard," she said.
When The New Paper visited the blocks on Wednesday, we found
eight trolleys, all dumped along the common corridors.
One, found on the 10th floor of a block, was secured to a pipe
with a bicycle lock.
It had a blue handle and no coin-operated trolley lock, similar
to the trolleys from Mustafa.
Residents of units that had trolleys outside were not in when
TNP visited, or declined to comment.
A maid working at Block 672B said she first observed trolleys
being left at the common corridors a year ago.
The 27-year-old said: "I notice one family brings a trolley home
and leaves it outside their flat. It usually happens once a
week."
Mr Ken Cheong, 43, another Klang
Lane resident, said a Mustafa Centre salesman had encouraged him to
use the trolley to carry his purchases home when he bought a
television from the store.
Mr Cheong, who lives at Block
671A, added: "The salesman said to take the trolley to move my
things back to my flat.
"He said to leave it near the
nearby hotel (the Hotel Grand Chancellor) after we were done, and
that people would come by to collect it.
"(The trolleys) would always disappear a few days later."
Mrs Cheong added: "You will see more and more trolleys
appearing, but they will be gone every few days."
Mustafa Centre's general manager
Alan Loo said that users do not need to put in a deposit to use one
of its trolleys.
He explained: "Tourists shopping
in Mustafa usually don't have one-dollar coins with them, so we do
not want to inconvenience them.
"Foreign workers also may not have
coins, so it's the same for them."
The store does not mind if
shoppers take the trolley with them.
Mr Loo told TNP: "The trolleys can
be freely used by whichever customers that come in. They are free
to bring their trolleys out to carry their things. It's part of our
service to our customers."
He said that Mustafa Centre
employs a team to collect trolleys from the
vicinity.
"We have a group of eight
staff members who operate daily to collect our trolleys in a 2km
radius around the centre, going as far as Bendemeer Road, Balestier
and along Serangoon Road.
Responsible customers
"However, most customers leave their trolleys at trolley bays
near our entrances. Mustafa customers are quite responsible.
"We have hundreds of trolleys, but lose only a few, less than
10, per quarter," he said. Each trolley costs around $400, he
said.
What about the reports of stray trolleys from Klang Lane
residents?
Said Mr Loo: "This may be an isolated case. It's not possible
for our staff to check every floor of every block.
"The responsibility must be on customers to return the trolley,
even if it is during their next visit to Mustafa."
He added that customers sometimes give staff tip-offs on the
whereabouts of trolleys.
"Long-time customers sometimes inform our security guards about
where they have spotted our trolleys.
"They are also welcome to call our office."
Both Giant and Sheng Siong
supermarkets said that customers would be reminded by staff to
return trolleys, but they faced no penalties for failing to do
so.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
