Singapore
SINGAPORE — The Cheers convenience store employee who had an argument with some police officers on New Year’s Day has been dismissed, NTUC FairPrice supermarket chain said on Wednesday (Jan 4).
A worker at a Cheers convenience store (left) who goes by the username “confederateginger” on TikTok published five videos showing his arguments with three police officers (right).
SINGAPORE — The Cheers convenience store employee who had an argument with some police officers on New Year’s Day has been dismissed, NTUC FairPrice supermarket chain said on Wednesday (Jan 4).
FairPrice, which owns the Cheers franchise, also apologised for the public concern caused by the incident, which received much attention online via videos that the employee himself had published on his TikTok account.
Earlier, FairPrice said that it had been alerted to the incident, which occurred on Jan 1 at a Cheers outlet in Lau Pa Sat within the Central Business District. After that, the staff member in question was immediately placed on administrative leave while investigations were ongoing.
“We have since spoken with the staff and assessed the incident and have instructed our franchisee to dismiss the staff,” FairPrice said on Wednesday.
It added that all its staff members, regardless of whether they are employed by franchisees, are required to comply with the authorities.
“We do not tolerate acts from staff who seek to undermine the authority of the police.”
The employee, who identifies himself as Jonathan Tan and goes by the username “confederateginger” on TikTok, uploaded five videos the day after the incident, showing his argument with three police officers.
The first video, which started with two policemen walking in, showed the employee saying that a person who was purportedly drunk had claimed to be a police officer, used profanities on him and called the police.
The video, with the caption “Part 1 Spf threatened to arrest ‘shutting off’ business entity for close to an hour”, also shows the employee refusing to provide his identification card to the policemen, insisting that “he did not commit any offence”.
When the officers asked for at least some other form of photo identification such as a driving licence, he refused to comply.
In another clip where he wrote that the officers were “playing around with Section 65”, the employee charged that the police were disrupting his business and threatened to upload the video showing the conversation and make it viral.
Section 65 refers to the law where a police officer may arrest any person who is accused of committing, or who commits in the view or presence of the police officer, a non-arrestable offence — if the person refuses to give his or her name and residential address when demanded by the police officer.
A final video showed one of the officers warning the employee that his actions could potentially cause obstruction of justice.
In response to TODAY’s queries, the police said that they were alerted to a dispute at 18 Raffles Quay on Jan 1 at around 8pm.
They said that preliminary investigations revealed that comments about race and nationality, and verbal threats, were allegedly exchanged before the police’s arrival.
No injuries were reported.
“Two men, aged 29 and 64, are assisting with police investigations,” they added.
TODAY understands that the 29-year-old is the Cheers employee and the older man is the person with whom he had the argument.
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