Restaurant owner denies slapping worker

MELAKA: The owner of a chicken rice restaurant in Melaka Raya has hit back at Netizens who criticised him for allegedly slapping his employee in public.

The 42-year-old owner, who declined to be named, claimed he was merely “horseplaying” with his employee and did not slap his worker.

“What has gone viral is false. It appeared like I was slapping him, but it was not a lempang.

“Lempang is where you raise your hands up high and (hit hard) on the face.

“I was only flicking my hands close to his face to instruct him to focus on his work as he was being playful,” he told the New Straits Times, adding that there were no injuries inflicted on his worker.

The man added that the worker was not an Indonesian, as alleged by Netizens, but a Malaysian working with him for the past 15 years.

“He is a local and about 30 years old. I treat him like my adopted son, but he is very playful.

“So, from time to time, I need to get him to stay focused, so I always horseplay with him.”

The owner said since the incident went viral, he had been having sleepless nights as he had received threats and was subjected to profanities from people on social media and via phone calls.

“I have been receiving calls from strangers scolding me, and private messages on Facebook by people who threatened to lempang me.

“I’ve lost count of how many (I have received).

“I am so stressed. It’s hard to describe what I’m feeling and I have not been sleeping well for four days,” he said.

He posted his version of the story on his restaurant’s Facebook page: EeJiBan Chicken Rice Ball Halal.

He said he would lodge a police report against Netizens for sharing the incident without confirming the matter.

Asked about claims that there were customers who had seen him scolding his workers, he said:

“When you are operating a busy restaurant like mine, you need to ensure efficiency so that your customers need not wait.

“If I am manning the frontline and my workers are inside, of course I have to raise my voice. But I have never scolded them with vulgarities.

“I have only told them things like ‘standby chili’, ‘go, take the order now. Go, Go’. Nothing wrong, right?

“I do not want to be a part of this issue with people discussing this,” he said.

A Twitter user, believed to be a customer of the restaurant, had posted pictures of the employer and his worker, claiming that the employer had slapped his employee in front of his customers.

The user said the worker was slapped because the pail he was carrying had knocked into a customer, even though the customer did not complain about it.

The post, which was uploaded on the Twitter account “GG” on Aug 6, has since been privatised, but it has been reposted on Facebook and other websites, garnering thousands of shares.

I have been receiving calls from strangers scolding me, and private messages on Facebook by people who threatened to ‘lempang’ me.

RESTAURANT OWNER