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MR. CHEONG-LEEN:- Mr. Chairman, granted no doubt, but that has nothing to do with the answer to my question.
MR. SALES: --Do I suspect a rift in the Civic Association—that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing? (Laughter).
CHAIRMAN:- Mr. CHEONG-LEEN, will it satisfy you if I agree to look into the question of closing the beach? But I do not think that it could be the Urban Council that does it.
MRS. ELLEN LI SHU-PUI asked the following question:-
In view of the recent experience when many children were taken ill after consuming ice cream sold by a hawker, please tell this Council what supervisory control is exercised by your Department over such hawkers? Is it desirable for ice cream and other perishable food to be sold by hawkers?
THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES replied as follows:
Licences have been issued to hawkers permitting them to sell ice cream since before the war. From 1946 onwards the Council limited the number of licences issued and each ice cream manufacturer had a quota. This limit was, however, abolished in 1958 in order to encourage the sales of reputable brands and to discourage illicit manufacture and sale. Licences are now issued without restriction to employees of licensed Frozen Confection factories; there are 16 factories operating at present and between them they employ 306 hawkers.
Sales of frozen confections by hawkers are controlled under the Frozen Confections By-laws and under the Hawker By-laws. Among other things, ice cream hawkers are required to wear clean uniforms, to display numbered badges and to observe personal cleanliness. They are required to be inoculated regularly and they are also liable to medical examination, if indicated. The hawking of ice cream without a licence is forbidden and ice cream sold in contravention of the By-laws may be seized by the hawker raiding gangs and destroyed. During March over 80 lbs. of ice cream were seized in this way in North Kowloon alone.
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The hygiene of licensed ice cream hawkers is controlled by the District Health Staff who check hawkers in the course of routine inspections to make sure that their licences are valid and that other provisions are being complied with. Samples of ice cream are taken regularly from licensed factories to ensure that it is up to standard.
Now that the hot weather is here, the staff will be intensifying their activity both to control unlicensed hawkers and to ensure that the licensed ones keep up their standards of cleanliness.
Whether or not it is desirable that ice cream should be sold by hawkers may be open to question, but it is a universal practice which satisfies a strong public demand. People want to buy ice cream on the beaches and in recreational areas where there are no shops. The "ice cream vendor" has become such a feature of the life of our young people that to abolish him would be to encourage illicit sales.
MR. BERNACCHI:- On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, an assurance was given from the chair several years ago that a question would not be answered without consulting the Chairman of the relevant Select Committee. Now, this concerns the hawking of ice cream. I will not go through the answer in detail, but for instance the statement- "Licences are now issued without restriction to employees of licensed Frozen Confection factories", is not correct. They are issued to nominees of licensed Frozen Confection factories. What "hawker raiding gangs" means I fail to understand. If it means the Hawker Control Force it is a very unfortunate remark.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES:- I was not aware, Sir, that a question required reference to the Chairman of a Select Committee in the first instance. But the question of licences being issued without restriction to employees does mean to their nominated employees. It is to their people who are actually going to sell the ice cream, not to all their employees. The word "employees" here does mean their nominated employees.
MR. BERNACCHI:- It is not correct because they are issued to persons who are nominated, but the nominated persons usually are not on the licensed factory's payroll. They gain their profit merely by the sale of ice cream.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES:- I agree, Sir. Perhaps it was the wrong word to use in this case, "Hawker raiding gangs" is an expression which seems to be commonly used. It does not refer to the Hawker Control Force.
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