‘No Now, No LAH, No CDC’: Kovan drinks stall’s quirky signs tell customers it’s cash only
A coffee shop drinks stall drew amused reactions for its unique way of requesting cash payments only — with a sign declaring: “No Now, No LAH, No CDC”.
Photos of the sign, which was displayed outside a drinks stall at Kovan 209 Market & Food Centre, went viral on Sept 13 when it appeared on TikTok user @manistripping’s account.
The white board reads: “No Now, No LAH, No CDC, Only Mr Yusof Bin Ishak”.
Above it, another sign says: “No Di Luo Here” — referring to thick, concentrated drinks. A third reads: “No Small Cup.”
A final sign instructs: “Cash Only.”
When Stomp visited the stall on Sept 15, the owner explained that her mother, who operates the stall with her, did not know how to accept payments via PayNow.
“She can’t even write her own name, how will she know how to PayNow?” the owner told Stomp in Mandarin.
She added that her mother still uses an “old-school phone”.
“How will an 80-year-old elderly know?”
Cash seen as more reliable
The stall owner added that despite putting up several signs informing customers that only cash payments were accepted, she would still receive requests for contactless payments.
“They can read the word ‘only’, but they’ll still ask me, ‘Can I PayNow you?’” she said.
“When you have to answer that dozens of times a day, how can you not get annoyed?”
While she acknowledged that handling cash could be “troublesome”, she felt it was still more reliable than contactless payments, which were susceptible to system disruptions.
She cited toilets that still require a 10-cent coin for entry as an example.
“If you urgently need to go to the toilet, will you PayNow them?” she said.
Asked why she did not sell “Di Lou” drinks, she suggested that customers may not be able to “handle drinking espresso”.
She also noted that her coffee powder “costs more than $10 per kilogram”.
The sign has reignited the age-old debate over cash versus cashless payments.
Some said they still prefer cash, while others said they rely on cashless payments because finding an ATM to withdraw money can be inconvenient.
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