ALL food and beverage outlets in Penang are allowed to receive customers for dine-ins starting tomorrow, says state Local Government, Housing, Town and Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo.
“The phase two of dine-ins will involve 8,795 outlets in both the island and mainland selling all types of food and beverages at their premises. There are 3,200 food outlets in the island and 5,595 in the mainland.
“On May 15, only eateries at hotels, shopping malls and fast food franchises were allowed for dine-ins.
“This is in accordance with the state government’s gradual approach in opening up the economy in various sectors,” Jagdeep said during a press conference held today which was also streamed live through Facebook.
Jagdeep stressed that the food outlets must adhere to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) set earlier.
“With the freedom given, comes a great responsibility for all to continue being vigilant as the fight against the Covid-19 outbreak is not over yet.
“I would like to reaffirm here for the food and beverage premises to follow the SOPs that we have announced earlier,” he said, adding that a total of 9,682 (phase 1 and phase 2) of food premises are allowed for dine-ins from tomorrow.
As for the conditional movement control order, Jagdeep said MBPP has recorded 99.6% compliance rate after conducting checks at 144,584 premises while MBSP has achieved 99.31% after checking 180,513 premises as of today.
Meanwhile, MBPP mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang urged the food outlet owners to cooperate on matters concerning contact tracing.
“The government has introduced a registration system for contact tracing known as ‘Penang Contact Tracer’ (PGCare) which can be downloaded on www.pgcare.my.
“This would help to ease the process of collecting basic particulars (name and contact) of the customers as required by the National Security Council,” said Yew.
For MBSP, its mayor Datuk Rozali Mohamud said social empowerment would play an important role in curbing the outbreak aside from social distancing.
“Each individual should know the do’s and don’ts since we have adapted to a lifestyle which is called a new norm,” he said.
Story by Tanushalini Moroter
Pix by Adleena Rahayu Ahmad Radzi