Tourism Board gives up on Orchard flower totems after constant pilferage
Amanda Tan Straits Times 15 Sep 11;
A MOVE to beautify Orchard Road worked so well that Singaporeans and tourists wanted a piece of the action.
Now the pillars of fresh flowers on Singapore's main shopping street are being taken down after developing bare patches at the bottom from shoppers and tourists stealing the blooms.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) released a statement yesterday saying it had decided to move the totems due to the 'constant flower pilferage'.
They will be packed off to Sentosa to be used in an annual floral festival.
The 20 pillars have proved too tempting for passers-by to resist ever since they were placed along the pedestrian walkway between Liat Towers and Forum Shopping Mall in 2009, as part of a makeover of Orchard Road. They cost less than 1 per cent of the $40 million project.
Orchids were the first type of flowers to be used, but they ended up being stolen. So STB switched to planting bromeliads, which are understood to be more cost-effective. But this did not stop the pilfering. And even when the flowers were gone, shoppers still could not keep their hands off the leaves.
STB explored 'various avenues' to maintain the totems. It also hired a company to check them on a regular basis and replaced the plants several times over the last two years.
But it eventually decided to move them after consulting various groups such as the Orchard Road Business Association.
Mr Augustine Lau, manager of Far East Electronics at Far East Shopping Centre, said that bald patches on the totems were a common sight.
'You can see that the bottom part is always empty,' he said. 'I guess people must have taken them.'
Another retailer at the centre, who asked not to be named, said that passers-by loved to pick the orchids, the first flowers to be planted. 'There were yellow and purple ones, and everyone loved to pluck them,' she said. 'They were gone very fast, by the next day.'
Ms Nadia Montenegro, who works at the Haagen-Dazs ice-cream store outside the Hilton Hotel, said she has seen people pluck the flowers, play with them and even throw them on the floor.
'Tourists, especially, are quite fascinated with the vertical columns,' she said.
When The Straits Times took a walk along the shopping belt yesterday, workers were dismantling the plants from two totems outside Liat Towers.
STB said that removal work was due to be completed by the end of this year. In the meantime, canvasses decorated with flower motifs would be wrapped around the 3.5m steel pillars.
The totems would be taken to a nursery where a landscaping team would prepare them for the week-long Sentosa Flowers Festival starting on Jan 23, the first day of Chinese New Year.
Ms Zee Soh Fun, assistant communications manager of Sentosa Leisure Group, said the organisation was 'exploring permanent locations for the totems'.
Dr William Wan, general secretary of the Singapore Kindness Movement, was sad to hear people had been stealing flowers, but felt they 'are not representative of the majority of Singaporeans'.
'The flowers are for the enjoyment of the public,' he said. 'It'll be good to reflect on the fact that the flowers are for everybody's enjoyment and not for anyone's taking.'
Dr Wan said he spent more than a decade living in Ottawa, Canada, where tulips were planted in the city centre for two weeks a year as a gift from Holland. 'I've not heard of people stealing those,' he said. 'They go there to enjoy it.'
Property agent Adeline Tan, 54, felt it was a pity that the flower columns were being removed. 'It softens the look of the city, with all the concrete around. There should be some sort of flowers here.'
Mr Mar Reyes, 22, felt that putting up 'Do Not Touch' signs would have helped to steer people away from the flowers.
Dr Wan is not convinced this would have worked. 'It's a mindset thing,' he said. 'People need to be more considerate and learn to enjoy the beauty of things as they are instead of taking them.'
