An open Letter to the Government to Save Zouk....#savezouk...

To Whoever it Concern,

I understand there are pressure from many residents around Zouk to force Zouk out of its current premises. And the opportunity now as they are about to renew their lease. I would like you to help keep it there. I understand it is a tall order. But sit down and weigh the pros and cons.

The pros:

• You will get rid of all the rubbish, noise kids, and drinking problems all at once. (this may not happened as there are 2 shops across the road in Holiday Inn selling cheap alcohol)
• The residents will have quieter and peaceful night.
• You too will have a peaceful day and those residents will be grateful to you and probably vote for you in the next elections.
• The govt may have a quick lump sum of money into the national vault.

The cons:

• Singapore will lose an iconic nightspot which is world known, and an icon that put Singapore in the Entertainment Map in the world.
• Lots of Singaporeans will be jobless. (Aren’t you guys are trying to create more jobs?)
• People especially the youngster will not vote for you in the next election. (Not just you but they are spread around Singapore, reason is not that you close Zouk, read on)
• One lesser place that allow the youngster to have fun. (You would rather they have fun then causing trouble. If you realised, there is only fights that don’t cause serious injuries as compared to Orchard Cinileisure Slashing case, Downtown East Gang Fight that left a NS MAN DEAD.)
•  Taxi drivers will have a drop of income as they will have 1 less destination to pick up and to drop customers/ the volume of crowd for nightlife will drop on a whole. As all the existing nightspot location can only hold that many people and they are pretty packed. So closing Zouk means partygoers will have 1 lesser place to go to, which means every week we will have close to 10000 people spending on taxi per party nights.
• Singaporeans especially the youngster will failed the happy index.
• For an unknown fact that Zouk has been constantly doing charity works like Chinese New Year lunch for the old folks staying in Tanjong Pagar Area, with the closure, this will probably stop this and the many charity works that they are doing.
•  With the closure of Zouk, means the end of Zouk-Out which draw in at least 15 000 tourists or more during last year event. (PS even the ex-Foreign Minister George Yeo was at Zouk Out with his daughter)
•  A backward move for Singapore Government who wanted to be an arts hub and entertainment capital of the world. (Which in turn we can’t trust the government as they don’t know what they want. Today you said you want A, Tomorrow you said you want B so what do you really want?)
•  A social network place where people meet real life as compared to cyber space. I have known many people who met their spouse in Zouk. Proposed in Zouk. Got married and living happily. 

The argument:

-          How many clubs in Singapore actually made it to the top 10 in World? (currently Zouk is No. 7 in the world and constantly in top 10 in the last 5 years)

-          2007 – 10

-          2008 – 11

-          2009 – 13

-          2010 – 10

-          2011 – 09

-          2012 – 05

-          2013 – 05

-          2014 – 07

These are the results are taken from UK DJ MAG which is the leading magazine for DJ and Clubs.

We look at a few clubs in Singapore that almost as big as Zouk in the last few years.

Ministry of Sound -> Zirca -> Dream

• Closed in 2008.
• Replaced by Zirca Mega Club (Closed in 2013)
• Replaced by Dream
• Not even in Top 100

Butter-factory

• Moved to the current location at One Fullerton in 2009.
• Been a “growing” club but has it hit the heights of Zouk?
• Not even in Top 100

Stats shown that even though these 2 clubs are considered the next biggest in Singapore they are nowhere near what Zouk have achieved. You will argue that these clubs are young thus unable to make it as big as Zouk but take a look most clubs open and close pretty fast in Singapore approx. 3 to 5 years. Along the way we have St James Power House which unfortunately closed too. If we want to attract foreign talents into Singapore, nightlife is one factor that they consider. We claimed that we welcome tourists but if the other 2 nightspots can’t even match up to Zouk, do you think we still can attract them? Can we build up another institution for partying that can hold world class DJs? We had the privilege of having Dash Berlin, Avcci, Hardwell, Steve Aoki, of whom are world class DJs right at our door steps, which club in Singapore can do it? All these you may not know them but they bring in lots of tourist when they are here. On hand stats also shown that we had about 14 million tourist a year. It will be approx. 1.2 mil a month. Of whom many came to Singapore to party in Zouk, do you think they come here to see the Merlion? Here to shop? Seriously we aren’t the cheapest around in the region. When you ask a tourist, many will tell you Zouk is a must go before you leave the Singapore. Even for the many US Navy sailors go to Zouk whenever their Aircraft Carrier is docking in Singapore. I have spoken to many sailors, marines from US and they said that they are so glad that their vessels operate in Pacific as they can go to Zouk when they are in Singapore. Some even shared with me before that they are so happy that they got a weekend pass so that they can party in Zouk. Some of their friends missed the opportunities as they have to be on duties. So are we expected to see a potential drop in tourists to Singapore?

The pros of lesser tourists:

•  Singapore will be last packed, be it on the train or even on our shopping belt.

The cons:

•   Lesser money flowing in to Singapore, start from airport tax to hotel to shopping even to taxes.

The resident complaint about the litter and rowdy crowd during party nights.

My question to the residents:

•  Do you know your house is near Zouk when you buy it?
•  Do you guys really KNOW the root cause of the drinking problems?

First of all, do you know your house is next to Zouk or was near Zouk, a world known club that has been around for 23 freaking years? When Zouk started, none of the condos or hotel laid a single foundation yet and you guys are trying to force them out? You guys know what you are in for and complaint about it like a spoilt brad.

Secondly, Zouk is not the real cause of the problem like what the many of my member of the parliament said out to be. The real cause of the problem is that there are 2 shop across the road in Holiday Inn selling alcohol dirt cheap, example a bottle of Chivas cost $49.90. With alcohol this cheap, it allows many students and the younger crowd to have access to more alcohol without control, thus more drank folks. If the 2 shops are not allow to sell alcohol this cheap, I believe the crowds will cut by half or even more. Why? After a night of observation, most of the drinking crowd bought the alcohol from the shops across the road and drink at the bridge or fountain area.  Probably 1 or 2 groups brought their duty-free alcohol from home. Those who litter the place did they buy their alcohol from Zouk? It is easy to blame just because they are heading to Zouk.

We all learned that those rowdy behaviour aroused from drinking too much alcohol and most of the time these kids acted under the influence of alcohol. If people said they are unaware that this is happening, take a quick check.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110107-256815.html

It was reported in my paper in 07 Jan 2011 that titled “Cheap booze draw youth” that the authorities knew about the problems, the sources of the problem. But the question is did they do enough to stop it? Or letting it escalate further? From my observation that Zouk send its own cleaners to clean up the mess left by those who don’t even buy alcohol from them. I don’t even see the presence of authorities in the area. Wait a minute, didn’t we have a fine system in place for those who are caught littering. So why can’t we send some people to fine those who left their rubbish after they finished drinking? But is fining the only way? How about educating these young people? Have we done enough is always the question. It is easy to have the blame game. So what next? If Zouk really moved out. The problems still continues, then who do you blame? Now at least there are people cleaning it up. If Zouk moved out NO-ONE will clean up. And trust me the problems will still be there even after Zouk moved out when their supplies is so near.

If you think it is ok to close, take a look at #savezouk which was start by a UK DJ magazine. www.save-zouk.com which have tonnes of people petitioning against the closure of Zouk. In less than 10 hours it has about 5000 people in it. 500 per hour. This means something.

Zouk is not just a club. It is home to many people. Some people can tell you that it is just for the young people from 18 – 25.But it is a club that caters from the youngest of 18 years old to the younger people of 20s to 30s to the young people of 40s n beyond.

To us the clubbers/ partygoers Zouk is like what a Merlion means to Singaporean (although some or most people don’t really care about the Merlion).  It is like moving Merlion out of its current location or best destroy it. The art scene in Singapore will definitely suffer on a whole. Let it stay, don’t move our “Merlion” out of the current location.

-DKR-