A Singapore court imposed a monetary penalty on a French teenager following his guilty plea to committing a public nuisance. Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 19, was sentenced to pay S$600 after the incident occurred on 12 March at an iJooz vending machine located in Goldhill Centre.
The student recorded himself licking a straw from the orange juice dispenser and subsequently placing it back into the machine before uploading the footage to Instagram. He captioned the post with the phrase “city is not safe.” The video generated significant negative reactions online and circulated widely after being shared on a community page and picked up by local news organizations.
iJooz, the company operating the vending machine, responded to the incident by replacing all 500 straws contained within the machine’s dispenser. The machines are widely distributed throughout Singapore in shopping districts, transportation hubs, and residential areas, dispensing freshly squeezed orange juice at S$2 per cup.
Under Singapore’s public nuisance statutes, offenders may face penalties up to S$2,000, imprisonment for up to three months, or both. In this case, both prosecuting and defence representatives recommended that a fine be imposed rather than incarceration. According to statements provided to The Straits Times, Maximilien’s legal counsel characterized him as remorseful, noting that the defendant recognized how his actions, which he had initially perceived as lighthearted, resulted in serious consequences.
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