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Members of the Korea Restaurant Association hold a rally in the main Olympic Stadium in Jamsil, Seoul, Tuesday, to call for credit card firms to lower the fees they charge them. About 50,000 restaurant owners took part in the protest. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
By Kim Rahn, Lee Hyo-sik, Yun Suh-young
Tens of thousands of restaurant owners pulled down their shutters to join a rally in protest of high credit card fees but mass closures of restaurants were averted Tuesday.
As the number of closed restaurants was far smaller than expected, citizens were still able to eat out at lunchtime.
About 50,000 owners took part in the protest taking place at the main Olympic Stadium in eastern Seoul, according to police. That’s about half the initial projection by the organizer of the rally. It is presumed that many operators participated while getting other staff to continue serving customers.
Ironically the lower-than-expected turnout reflects the real financial hardship mom-and-pop restaurants face, as a one-day closure would cause a considerable loss to them, some restaurant owners said.
Almost all restaurants in downtown and southern Seoul operated during lunch hours.
In Bukchang-dong near City Hall where there are dozens of eateries to feed the many employees in the area, fewer than 10 eateries closed.
Two office workers in their late 40s tried to go to a noodle place but the door was locked, with a notice about the rally in the front window. “The restaurant usually has a long queue of waiting people because a bowl of noodles is very cheap, only around 3,500 won. I saw no queue today so I thought I was lucky, but it’s not open,” Lee Jeong-gil, one of the workers, said.
With a mass closure forecast, some people left their offices earlier than usual, thinking restaurants would be more crowded than usual. Other worried people chose to have fast food, as those chains usually never close. “I have more delivery orders today than usual. I’m pretty busy,” said a McDonalds delivery person who was taking hamburger sets to an office in Jeong-dong.
While the Korea Restaurant Association estimated about 100,000 members would stage the rally, the actual tally by the police was about half that.
Many members chose to open, as they would see additional losses on top of their financial hardship.
An employee at the franchise restaurant Midarae said the owner took part in the rally and had other people open the shop. “These days we see deficits. We also want credit card fee cuts, but we can’t close the restaurant as it will cause more losses. So, only the boss went to the rally,” she said.
An owner of a restaurant in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, said she had to open as she received many reservations the day before. “I had to open the shop because I don’t want to disappoint customers. For me, serving customers is equally as important as the rally.”
Kim Kyung-rye, the owner of a restaurant in Cheongnyangni, northern Seoul, said she opened the shop while her husband participated in the demonstration. “I think imposing a 2.7-percent charge on restaurants for customers’ payment by cards is way too high. About 80 percent of customers pay with credit cards and if card firms charge us with such a high fee, we can’t operate anymore,” she said.
During the rally, the association demanded credit card companies lower the card fees on mom-and-pop eateries to about 1.5 percent from the current 2.7 percent on average.
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