Chewing gum in Singapore

by Mike
(Chofu)

Since it's not fun to learn useful information, most of what I know regarding other countries are usually funny and/or weird things and this goes especially for Singapore.

I only really know one thing about Singapore and that is that they have laws against chewing gum. You can still get gum for medicinal purposes, but you have to get it from a doctor. So why is it an issue and why would they even have a law against it?

It started with the fact that there was a lot of "gum vandals" in Singapore who would dispose of their gum in mailboxes, keyholes, and elevator buttons, etc., causing increased costs of public cleaning. A ban was considered at this time, but did not go through as it was considered too drastic.

Singapore then started their metro system in 1987 and the vandals started sticking their gum on the sensors for doors on the trains causing them to not work properly and disrupting the train services. These events were a little rare, but they were very costly and led towards the ban on gum.

When you read this, you understand the need for it, but it still feels a little extreme and it makes me wonder if this also is a problem in the rest of the world and if not, then why is/was it a problem in Singapore?

This is however not the only weird law that Singapore has. I am not well read about it, but I have also heard that they have a law about flushing public toilets which according to me, should not need to be a law. It is just common sense.

I am very interested in if there is actually a need for these laws or if their government is just overreacting.