Restaurants at malls not allowed to sell takeaways directly to customers

[webfact]

 

By Tanakorn Sangiam

   

BANGKOK (NNT) - Restaurants at shopping malls are allowed to reopen for takeaway and delivery orders, albeit with a new restriction in place barring direct contact between sellers and customers. Health officials have explained the measure is in place to ensure no crowding around the shop.

 

The Department of Health’s Director General Dr Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai, has elaborated on the latest safety restrictions applied to restaurants at shopping malls, which are now allowed to open for takeaways or delivery orders without direct contact with the customer.

 

This new measure has added an additional safety gap for mall goers who wish to buy takeaways from the restaurants. They can now no longer visit the shopfront themselves to collect their orders. Instead, the restaurant or the shopping mall will need to set up a collection point outside the restaurant for customers, and may only take orders via online systems or phone calls.

 

Restaurants that can’t arrange such a facility will be forced to sell via food delivery platforms only, where delivery riders will come and collect the orders as usual.

 

Dr Suwanchai has explained this measure is in place to ensure a higher level of safety, which prevents customers from crowding around the restaurant waiting for their orders.

 

He said restaurants and shopping malls are also responsible for ensuring adequate management of the new food ordering system, in order to prevent crowding at any given time.

 

Meanwhile, restaurants outside shopping malls are still allowed to sell takeaway orders directly to customers. They are also encouraged to put measures in place to prevent crowding. Dining-in is now prohibited at any restaurant inside or outside shopping malls within dark red provinces under the strictest controls against COVID-19.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-08-04

 

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[HeijoshinCool]

5 minutes ago, webfact said:

Director General Dr Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai

Well, that was half the article right there....

 

I wonder how he answers his office phone....

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

They've been doing that out here at our mall since back during the first lockdown. No need to go up to the restaurant area on the second floor. Stay downstairs around the large lobby area where all the restaurants have tables set up for ordering. Then sit in spaced out seats as you wait. Surprisingly well organized. Even the cinema has a table set up selling popcorn and candy, so their workers can get some work, and you can get a bit of that cinema experience you're missing.

[ezzra]

It seem that for the inept leadership it easier to chock the life out of every commerce in this country including so called sandbox areas, than to prepare ahead for the Covid calamity by burying their collective heads in the sand when Covid first hit Thailand...

[CharlieH]

42 minutes ago, HeijoshinCool said:

Well, that was half the article right there....

 

I wonder how he answers his office phone....

"Hello" ?

[kotsak]

47 minutes ago, HeijoshinCool said:

Well, that was half the article right there....

 

I wonder how he answers his office phone....

[ThailandRyan]

1 hour ago, CharlieH said:

"Hello" ?

Just add "It's me.....

[Caldera]

It's an idiotic rule when looked at in context. I can walk to my nearby Burger King for takeaway, because it's a standalone restaurant. I cannot walk to my nearby McDonald's for takeaway, because it happens to be inside a shopping center. They're about the same size, so could offer the same space to waiting customers.

 

I don't mind using delivery services and do so quite often, but going on a walk once per day and picking up supplies along the way is good for me.

 

Let's keep in mind that obesity is the number one killer when it comes to serious cases of Covid. We really don't need even more lazy arsed people relying on food deliveries, when they could easily walk to a nearby shop.

[Oxx]

11 minutes ago, Caldera said:

I don't mind using delivery services

I do because in this area they are very unreliable.  Perhaps 50% of the time my order gets cancelled after 20 minutes or so.  On occasions I've had three cancellations in a row, meaning it's an hour later, and I still haven't got anything to eat.  Why can't the delivery companies set up a system which ensures that an accepted order is actually fulfilled?

[daveAustin]

12 minutes ago, Caldera said:

Let's keep in mind that obesity is the number one killer

Says he pigging out on Burger King and Macky Ds! ????

[bbko]

19 minutes ago, Caldera said:

Let's keep in mind that obesity is the number one killer when it comes to serious cases of Covid. 

????????????

[ThailandRyan]

17 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

Says he pigging out on Burger King and Macky Ds! ????

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/848957/heart-disease-high-blood-pressure-fat-obesity

 

However, judging people on their size is not always an accurate way to determine health.

A growing number of people who seem as they they are a normal, healthy weight are carrying around dangerous amounts of hidden fat.

 

Doesn't mean a person who eats fast food is obese.  It is the potential to cause heart disease that is the real danger.  As the saying goes "You can not judge a book by it's cover"

[mtls2005]

2 hours ago, ezzra said:

It seem that for the inept leadership it easier to chock the life out of every commerce in this country

 

I understand the need to use hyperbole to support a flawed argument - but pro tip: it rarely works.

 

Can you explain how "commerce" is choked with this regulation?

 

If anything "commerce" is broadened - by involving food delivery services and their drivers - rather than constricted.

 

 

[realfunster]

51 minutes ago, Caldera said:

It's an idiotic rule when looked at in context. I can walk to my nearby Burger King for takeaway, because it's a standalone restaurant. I cannot walk to my nearby McDonald's for takeaway, because it happens to be inside a shopping center. They're about the same size, so could offer the same space to waiting customers.

 

I don't mind using delivery services and do so quite often, but going on a walk once per day and picking up supplies along the way is good for me.

 

Let's keep in mind that obesity is the number one killer when it comes to serious cases of Covid. We really don't need even more lazy arsed people relying on food deliveries, when they could easily walk to a nearby shop.

 

You are absolutely correct, as usual the rules have been created and applied with little to no common sense or practicality being applied.

 

I have also noticed near me that some fast food joints that are on the external peripheries of malls (with their own standalone entrances/exits)  are completely shut down and therefore also appear to be banned from doing deliveries. The same businesses that just happen to be physically separate from the mall are free to continue. 

 

I would imagine that this industry employs a reasonable number of lower-income people (certainly in Bangkok) and such policies have unnecessarily put peoples' livelihoods at risk over the last couple of weeks.

 

I am glad they have had a re-think. 

[Caldera]

49 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

Says he pigging out on Burger King and Macky Ds! ????

Occasionally. I've used those two fast food joints as examples because they're pretty much exactly the same thing, just mind-bogglingly under different regulations due to being or not being inside a shopping center. 

[jacko45k]

3 minutes ago, realfunster said:

You are absolutely correct, as usual the rules have been created and applied with little to no common sense or practicality being applied.

The rule is/was Malls are closed apart from supermarkets.... the idea is to minimize traffic in them, quite sensible.... special rules for places with an outside door as well as a door inside the malls have not been made. 

Stop winging about the rules and work with them .....over 20,000 today so a tightening up may make sense.

[PMinThailand]

Another inconsistent rule. Adding a middle-man between the restaurant and the customer just increases potential exposure to an infected delivery man! 

[jacko45k]

1 minute ago, PMinThailand said:

Another inconsistent rule. Adding a middle-man between the restaurant and the customer just increases potential exposure to an infected delivery man! 

I feel I can protect myself better from a delivery man at the gate ( I can even avoid getting within 2 m if I so chose), than I could traveling to the Mall and entering the building and the restaurant in question. 

The middle man is irrelevant to the situation.... other than his  personal risk... maybe he wants to keep working.

[Mickeymaus]

Just now, jacko45k said:

I feel I can protect myself better from a delivery man at the gate ( I can even avoid getting within 2 m if I so chose), than I could traveling to the Mall and entering the building and the restaurant in question. 

The middle man is irrelevant to the situation.... other than his  personal risk... maybe he wants to keep working.

Some people still didn't understand that we have a bigger problem and that it is getting bigger every day... I see expecially many farangs running around with the mask under the chin or under the nose. Not sure what they think. I just know what I think about them and this is not nice... 

[utalkin2me]

This should do it. Covid will be stopped dead in its tracks. 

[Mac Mickmanus]

Is this for the whole of Thailand or just some areas ?

[mtls2005]

19 minutes ago, utalkin2me said:

This should do it. Covid will be stopped dead in its tracks. 

Again with the hyperbole.

 

This isn't about stopping something dead in its tracks - do love the hunting metaphors though.

 

It's about SLOWING the progress to give ourselves more time to get vaccinated, and to prevent the health care system from collapsing.

 

No clue why this concept is so challenging for some here to comprehend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Joinaman]

2 hours ago, Caldera said:

It's an idiotic rule when looked at in context. I can walk to my nearby Burger King for takeaway, because it's a standalone restaurant. I cannot walk to my nearby McDonald's for takeaway, because it happens to be inside a shopping center. They're about the same size, so could offer the same space to waiting customers.

 

I don't mind using delivery services and do so quite often, but going on a walk once per day and picking up supplies along the way is good for me.

 

Let's keep in mind that obesity is the number one killer when it comes to serious cases of Covid. We really don't need even more lazy arsed people relying on food deliveries, when they could easily walk to a nearby shop.

want to live near me ??

Nearest burger king is around 55 kilometers  nearest Mc Donald's is around 57 kilometers, nearest 7-11 is 15 kilometers, nearest ATM is 15 kilometers. and that's just one way

Would certainly keep you fit, walking to these 

 

[BobinBKK]

5 hours ago, HeijoshinCool said:

I wonder how he answers his office phone....

Dr. Doo-Little

[OJAS]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Dr Suwanchai has explained this measure is in place to ensure a higher level of safety, which prevents customers from crowding around the restaurant waiting for their orders.

Customers will instead crowd around the restaurant's designated pick-up point in the mall car park presumably.

Edited August 4, 2021 by OJAS

[newnative]

   Another idiotic lockdown rule.  Add that to my experience at Home Pro yesterday.  Parts of the store were open and other parts were roped off.  Where is the sense in that?  I could buy a hammer but not a television.  Paint but not patio furniture.  Madness.  With parts of the store roped off it just herded all the customers closer together.  

[pedro01]

3 hours ago, Oxx said:

I do because in this area they are very unreliable.  Perhaps 50% of the time my order gets cancelled after 20 minutes or so.  On occasions I've had three cancellations in a row, meaning it's an hour later, and I still haven't got anything to eat.  Why can't the delivery companies set up a system which ensures that an accepted order is actually fulfilled?

That sucks.

 

With grab, it takes about 15 mins to tell you there's no driver. During that 15 mins, you can't cancel.

 

Quite often hungry mouths are waiting.

[pedro01]

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

Again with the hyperbole.

 

This isn't about stopping something dead in its tracks - do love the hunting metaphors though.

 

It's about SLOWING the progress to give ourselves more time to get vaccinated, and to prevent the health care system from collapsing.

 

No clue why this concept is so challenging for some here to comprehend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks to flatten the curve...

[mtls2005]

2 minutes ago, pedro01 said:

Quite often hungry mouths are waiting.

 

Plan ahead?

 

The expectations that food will fall from the tree probably need to be reset for the next 3 - 6 months.

 

 

[Tropicalevo]

So less money for the restaurant because they have to use a delivery service?