Man who insists on blowing bubbles in MRT station wants to know why he was not allowed to

Are we being cautious or uptight?

Jonathan Lim | March 24, 2016, 03:15 PM

A bubble artist who performs under the name, The Order of the Imaculate Bubble, was blowing bubbles inside HarbourFront MRT station when he was asked to stop by a staff member there.

A video of the bubble artist and his confrontation with the staff member, Thomas Lee, has gone viral with the artist accusing Lee of detaining him. The bubble artist maintains throughout the video that it was not illegal for him to blow bubbles and that he knew the code of conduct inside a station.

"When I blow bubbles, people smile. People hug me; strangers give me a hug because they had a hard-assed day. Because it brings a little escape to this, otherwise, crazy world," the artist said.

In the video, Lee, the station staff, explained that it was perfectly fine for the artist to blow bubbles elsewhere, but not in the station. Lee said that he did not know the chemicals used to make the bubbles and wanted the artist to stop blowing them. When the artist wanted to leave on a train, Lee stopped him from doing so, explaining that he needed the police to verify whether the artist's "bubble-blowing is OK or not".

Officers from the Public Transport Security Command (PTSC) were subsequently brought in by station staff. Lee said that he had asked the artist to stop blowing bubbles several times. The officers told the artist that some people may be annoyed at the bubbles.

The artist asked both the officers and Lee, repeatedly, whether he was being detained. He also maintained that what he was doing was not illegal. The PTSC officers subsequently told him that he would be let off with a warning and that what he was doing was not allowed inside the premises and he would be subject to a fine the next time. The artist did question the officers what exactly was not allowed, but the video did not capture the audio well.

Here's the video which was uploaded by Benjamin Chiang (who said he is a friend of the artist) onto Facebook page FiveStarsAndAMoon:

Happy bubble poppedMy friend blows bubbles in public to cheer people up. He tries to do so in the train station and gets surrounded by armed guards and detained by an SMRT staff. Here’s a 10min video, you be the judge.Blowing bubbles is clearly not against the “law”, we’re using the idea of “rules” and “law” wrongly. We have to stop saying things are “against the law”, because most of the time it isn’t. If anything, it is merely against a condition of using SMRT trains…but no one really knows whether or not it is against these conditions.Yes, you can go nuts about it being a crime of public nuisance…but honestly, what kind of society are we living in if we’re going to be so uptight about every little thing? We should be building a social immune system rather than “illegal this and that”.“Blowing bubbles give me joy that I know is shared. And that sharing of joy also brings joy. ” says the bubble man. “Both adults and children are delighted when I blow these bubbles…and if I knew I was annoying anyone, of course I wouldn’t continue…in front of them.” The SMRT staff is very smug about it. He’s happy that someone else isn’t. The police are probably just annoyed that they have to spend 10 minutes resolving this when they should be looking out for real criminals.What sort of Singapore do we want? A straight laced, uptight one? Or one where we’re free to indulge in little harmless joys?[Writer: Benjamin Chiang]

Posted by FiveStarsAndAMoon on Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Did the station staff have any right to demand the artist to stop blowing bubbles? Was the artist correct in saying that what he was doing was not illegal?

Luckily, we have the trusty Singapore Statutes to light our way.

In Rapid Transit Systems Act (Chapter 263A) under the "Conduct of Passengers" portion, we have the following:

Compliance with instructions

11. Every person while on the railway premises shall comply with all notices, signs and all reasonable directions and instructions of any authorised person.

The issue here was whether Lee's instruction for the artist to stop blowing bubbles was reasonable. Lee said that the bubbles are made of chemicals that he could not verify. Reasonable or overreaction?

Passenger not to cause nuisance

17. No person shall conduct himself on any train or in any part of the railway premises so as to cause a nuisance or annoyance to other passengers.

Some people are annoyed at bubbles popping in their faces. The same could be said if someone decided to bring a huge boombox to blast music - you'd wish there were some rules in place to get them to stop the inconsiderate act, right?

Missiles, etc., not to be thrown on or from railway premises

19. No person shall throw, drop or deposit, or cause to be thrown, dropped or deposited on, into or from the railway premises any missile or thing capable of injuring, damaging, endangering or inconveniencing any person or property.

Okay bubbles are not speeding missiles, but blow enough of them, the soapy residue left on the floor can be a slippery hazard - but that can also be said of all rainwater people bring in with their umbrellas.

Removal of persons from railway

51. Any employee of the Authority or its licensee shall have the power to remove from the railway premises any person whom he reasonably suspects of committing or attempting to commit any breach of these Regulations.

Was the station staff detaining the artist, as the artist claimed he was not allowed to get onto a train? From the line above, it shows that a train operator has the power to remove someone from its premises if they suspect regulations have been breached -- in this case, aside from being denied entry into a train, the artist may have been thrown out of the station altogether.

In a comment on the video, a photograph of the artist shows him posing with an SMRT staff member, presumably fine with his bubble-blowing at another station:

bubble blowing

Related:

Man takes to Facebook to accuse Changi Airport immigration officer of infringing his rights

 

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