Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

ST’s Loh Keng Fatt Says You Should Pay SGD2 To Enter Bookshops

I have always wondered why bookshops operate on a model that literally allows customers the full run of the place – and with little prospects of many of them actually buying something.

Bookshops play Santa, and everyone’s welcome to browse, read, socialise and hang loose.

I think they should charge, say, a $2 admission charge.

Which brings me back to the point of levying an admission fee – to get the right type of people to come.

Loh Keng Fatt, who works as an online Editor at the Straits Times, thinks that bookshops in Singapore are overrun with the hoi polloi and therefore are not the right type of people. So in order to attract the right type of people, everybody should pay an SGD2 admission fee to enter to read books.

Does he live on another planet?

The reason why a trip to Borders/Popular/Kinokuniya on the weekends is so enjoyable is precisely because there is a gaggle of people there. The bookshop isn’t just a store, it’s a place to socialize.

Why do we need only ‘the right people’ to come? That just smacks of elitism.

FACEPALM!!!

Please go leave a comment and tell him how plain wrong he is. It’s a disgrace to read something like this in a national newspaper.

Update:
This is the same dude that thinks building a new mall in Bedok to drive the small shops out of business is a good idea.

there’s already too many malls in Singapore IMHO.

and in bedok is it so hard to get to tampines? why build another mall.

my aunt’s cinema in bedok got closed down cuz some big fat cat bought it over, now my childhood’s memory is over just like that.

i think he meant we should not build a new mall in Bedok so that there is that old-world charm there

Though I’m no big fan of reading (I only read magazines like National Geographic or Runner’s World), I think this guy here is damn salah.

WTF??? Another one asking for trouble…sigh

Actually he did say that a new mall at Bedok is not necessary so that the old charm is retained. Did we misconstrued?

I lived in Bedok all my life so far. I dont need a shopping mall in bedok, really. East coast park is even more fun than shopping mall which i can go to in tampines or simei.