Many lovers of the king of fruits who went to SS2 last night to look for ‘Donalds’ to have durians were much saddened and disappointed when they found the durian stall had vanished into thin air, that is, no longer there.

The place where ‘Donalds’ used to be is now an empty open space and in total darkness at night, as there is no public street lighting.

Well, you know how ‘busy’ is the place now that looks like an island. The place has just a curvy, short and narrow road that leads a motorist out into a main SS2 road in the shopping square.

Strangely, there is only one durian stall selling durians known as 'dot com', standing alone because there should be none. There had been more stalls prior to the relocations.

Over time, together they have helped turned the place into what it is known (before the stalls were torn down recently under an order from the Petaling Jaya City Council or MBPJ) as the Famous Durian Street of PJ, Subang Jaya and some say Selangor, too.

For your information, the place in SS2 is a safe haven for roadside fruits sellers to hawk because chances are if you see a motorist driving through the short and curvy stretch of road in front the stalls, 24/7 literally speaking, he or she would be coming to eat durians at the stalls.

Motorists do not mind going in circles looking for a parking lot as it is part and parcel of the pleasure and excitement of eating durians.

Thus, it is much safer for customers to patronise the place at all hours at the old place, rather than at Jalan Harapan.

Well, the question is what really made MBPJ have these stalls demolished and relocate them to Jalan Harapan?

By the way, it took many years for the SS2 place to become known as the durian street. And so it is a shame to lose all these within hours just because someone in MBPJ gave instructions to have all the stalls demolished.

MBPJ should have some some consideration for the safety of durian eaters in Jalan Harapan.  You see, the stalls there are located beside a straight stretch of road which looks like a fast track, where motorists using the stretch may start to race each other.

This is a high-risk area to put up hawker stalls because someday, sometime, someone could get killed by a motorist.

Safer and a better crowd-puller

However, between both locations, SS2 is ideal, safer and is a better crowd-puller, for this type of business.

Durian traders reckon that they get more new customers when their stalls are seen by the public at large.

Sadly, the business partners of ‘Donalds’ seem to be unhappy about the abrupt turn of events.

They want to know how come one trader is allowed to move back and restart selling durians in the old SS2 location on June 17, when other durian traders were told not move their stalls back.

Something is amiss.

The ‘Donalds’ people have always acted promptly in compliance to MBPJ’s directives, rules and laws especially when told to move the stall over to Jalan Harapan - since the existing SS2 place is not for use by durian stalls any more. So all the stalls there have to move out. And they did. Now they, too, would like to move back to SS2.

Why, because they have lost business and money since the relocation and earnestly plead to MBPJ to let them return.

The bottom line is that MBPJ should be fair to all these durian traders in SS2.

MBPJ enforcement officers should go over to SS2 to evict the sole durian trader and issue a summons for selling durians again at the old place.

LAU BING is a community activist and writer in Subang Jaya.