An attendant at a popular garden in the heart of Tokyo has cost the facility millions of yen because he was “too frightened” to ask foreign visitors to pay the admission fee.
The attendant, who is in his early 70s, admitted failing to collect the fees for Shinjuku Gyoen national garden after an investigation was launched following a tip-off by another employee. The unnamed man said he had stopped collecting admission fees of 200 yen (US$1.80) for adults and 50 yen (US45¢) for children in April 2014, and had continued to allow foreign visitors in free of charge for about two and a half years. As a result an estimated 160,000 people entered the garden without paying. The environment ministry said that it had lost at least 25 million yen ($220,000).
The man told ministry investigators that being yelled at by a non-Japanese visitor years ago had made him wary of overseas guests. “I don’t speak any other languages and I got scared when a foreigner began yelling at me a long time ago,” he told ministry officials. The errant employee was docked 10% of his salary. He asked to take retirement and offered to return half of his retirement bonus, or about 300,000 yen (US$2,650).
