Woman running 7 hawker stalls unable to work after cancer diagnosis, granted rental waiver of over $10k

After being diagnosed with cancer in February, hawker Yan Mengjing (transliteration) had to temporarily close her seven cooked food and market stalls to focus on recovery.

The 48-year-old single mum subsequently received rental waivers totalling over $10,000 from the National Environment Agency (NEA), reported Shin Min Daily News on Wednesday (Dec 18).

Yan, who hails from Myanmar, obtained Singapore citizenship in 2003. To raise her daughter after her divorce more than 10 years ago, she set up a yong tau foo stall before starting to sell seafood in 2019.

"At first, I had two stalls. Then, I noticed many vacant stalls and decided to rent them too. In addition to the six market stalls, I also run a cooked food stall selling Burmese curry," she told Shin Min.

Yan was busy running the stalls — until she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in February.

Amid multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments that lasted over six months, Yan would periodically return to work.

"Due to my weakened immune system, the doctor advised me to avoid crowds, so I wasn't able to work as usual," she said.

Yan's cooked food stall has been closed since February, while an assistant helmed operation of her market stalls. In July, she decided to suspend business there too, and applied to NEA to waive her rent payments.

The hawker told the Chinese evening daily that she waited over two months for the application outcome and had felt anxious when rent continued to be deducted from her bank account.

"I'm grateful for NEA's help, which reduced some pressure," she said. "I understand that there are regulations to abide by, but I hope that in the future, the application process can be expedited based on applicants' individual circumstances."

Application granted a month after complete submission: NEA

Yan re-opened her seafood stall at Toa Payoh Palm Spring Market in November, and has given up her cooked food stall.

In a statement to AsiaOne on Monday (Dec 23), NEA said the initial medical leave submitted by the hawker only partially covered the waiver period. After receiving the required supporting documents in mid-August, the agency approved the waivers by mid-September.

A rental waiver of 11 months (February to December) for her cooked food stall and six months (July to December) for all six market stalls, amounting to over $11,000 was granted.

NEA also referred her case to the town council and Hawkers' Association to consider waiving off the Service & Conservancy Charges and table cleaning charges respectively.

The authority said it had also exercised flexibility by allowing Yan's assistants to operate the stalls on her behalf while she was ill.

NEA added that their officers had visited the hawker twice - once to guide her through the appeal process and once to inform her of the approval - and had suggested she consider returning some stalls to focus on recovering, as well as to ensure the market has sufficient stalls in operation to meet residents' needs.

Recently, NEA's place manager observed that Yan was selling other goods such as canned food and frozen goods.

"To ensure that our wet markets have a good mix of offerings and to be fair to other stallholders selling such goods, we advised her to only sell what was permitted for her stalls," said NEA.

"As a gesture of goodwill, we agreed that she could continue to sell off her current stock of canned and frozen goods."

The hawker was also found to have operated the stalls with an unregistered stall assistant, and the place manager has offered to help register her assistant.

"While we endeavour to support all our stallholders in times of need, we also have to ensure that stalls in our market and hawker centres operate fairly and continue to be opened regularly to serve the needs of the public."

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lim.kewei@asiaone.com