A HAWKER and a customer recently exchanged blows after a heated argument about the cost of a local dish spiraled out of control in a hawker centre at Johor Bahru.
A report by China Press said the scuffle occurred when the customer, her younger sister and three kids visited the hawker centre located around Skudai area sometime in the morning. The customer’s sister, surnamed Huang, said they would buy some food from one of the hawker’s stalls.
When it was time to pay for the food, the customer was taken aback that their meal cost RM12 in total and refused to pay for her meal as she thought the pricing was way too expensive.
However, the hawker stall owner had heard of the customer’s reluctance to pay and confronted her, which escalated to the hawker vendor purportedly hurling nasi lemak toward the customer and her family before tackling her to the ground.
Huang then claimed her sister’s head was also struck by the vendor repeatedly before the other patrons came to split up the fight. The patron appeared to have injuries on her scalp, whereas there were curry stains on her shirt from the brawl.
“We thought that was the end, but we didn’t expect the hawker to go back to her stall to retrieve a kitchen knife before stepping towards us angrily. Luckily, others at the scene managed to stop her and nobody was hurt,” she said.
However, the manager of the hawker centre provided a different version of events due to the CCTV footage reviewed of what transpired that day. According to the footage reviewed by the manager, the hawker did not throw the food toward the customer but dropped it on the floor.
The customer then splashed hot soup on the vendor, which allegedly triggered the brawl. He then clarified that both sides had agreed to call a truce by paying each other’s medical bills after going to the police to help investigate the incident.
