Wednesday February 8, 2012

No longer cheap to drink water

> Stories by YVONNE LIM, TAN SIN CHOW, MOHD FARHAAN SHAH and YEE XIANG YUN

PETALING JAYA: Reflective of the increasing cost of living in the Klang Valley is the price that eating joints charge for plain water – up to RM1.50.

“Most cafes in this area charge more than 80 sen for a glass of water. So as a business, we have to follow the market price,” said The Coffee and Spice Company operations manager Jun Cheong.

The “kopitiam” concept eatery in KLCC charges its customers RM1.50 for a glass of plain water, which is refillable.

Chakri Palace KLCC restaurant manager CK Chong cited the same reason as Jun for charging customers 80 sen for a refillable glass of distilled water.

Expensive sky juice: Most restaurants charge their customers between 50 and 80 sen for a glass of plain water.

Other restaurants such as Spice of India and Bumbu Desa do not offer distilled water at all, and only serve bottled mineral or reverse-osmosis water.

“Most of our customers here are tourists who prefer to order bottled water,” said Northen Indian cuisine restaurant manager Christopher Dinesh Kumar, adding that a bottle of mineral water costs between RM4 and RM8, depending on the brand.

In SS2, most restaurants charge their customers between 50 and 80 sen for a glass of sky juice.

Food outlet Italiano’s manager Anggun Shidee said plain water used to be free, but the restaurant now charged 50 sen a glass because there were too few customers ordering the other beverages.

“As an Italian restaurant, our coffee and juices are part of our speciality. Now more customers order our other beverages instead of just drinking plain water,” she said.

Chinese restaurant Dragon One operating manager Pang Choi Ngan also said that plain water used to be free but the restaurant now charged 80 sen a glass to help pay for the water bill.

In Bangsar, “kopitiam” concept outlet Chawan manager Imran Adnan said many restaurants charge for plain water because of the high operations costs.

“Even the mamaks around here charge for plain water,” he said, adding that a glass of plain water at Chawan costs 50 sen.

Papparich manager Danny TC said the restaurant charged 60 sen for a glass of distilled water.

Petaling Jaya Restaurant and Coffeeshop Operators Association secretary Lee Thien Moon said restaurants and cafes now charged for everything, even plain water, because of the increase in rental prices and increased levy on foreign workers.

“Rental in many areas in Petaling Jaya and KL are now so expensive. Furthermore, the levy on foreign workers working in restaurants has been increased from RM600 to RM1,800. So restaurateurs have no choice but to charge their customers more,” he said.

In JOHOR BARU, the price of plain water was relatively cheap.

A check showed that restaurants in Jalan Maju charged between 30 sen and 50 sen per glass while mamak restaurants served free water to customers.

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