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motion that the Council should accept two standards in Hong Kong, one for private housing and the other for public housing estates. If private and public housing belong to this community, there is no conceivable reason why public housing which houses nearly half of the population of Hong Kong should be prohibited to the new hawker scheme whilst private housing areas should be permitted to hawkers. This, to me, is unfair and discriminatory. And with these strong reservations, I want to support the motion, but I would also like to ask that these points should be considered by the Committee. I support the motion.
MR. CHARLES C. C. SIN (in English):-Mr. Chairman, whilst I support the spirit of the motion, that is to say, I fully endorse the idea and the aims of this Council that, in times of economic adversity, hawking would provide a buffer unemployment, I will repeat what I have said before that whilst we tolerate unlicensed hawking, we must safeguard the interests of shopkeepers, businesses and the environment of people who live in the area and, lastly, the interests of the licensed hawkers.
I see from the motion that it is proposed in many of our streets that trading hours would be from 6.00 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. every day. The result would be that these streets would be occupied by both licensed and unlicensed hawkers for most of the day which will deprive shopkeepers and businesses and also building sites upon which new buildings would be erected. Therefore, I submit that, whilst I support the scheme, the trading hours must be limited to have the spirit of live and let-live, give and take. Whilst this is a concession to unlicensed hawkers, the rights of other businesses should not be totally sacrificed. And, therefore, I propose that in respect of most cases of 6.00 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., these should be confined to hours of 6.00 a.m. to 12 noon and no more, therefore leaving part of a day to other businesses. In respect of businesses from 12 noon to 12 midnight, I would suggest that they should start, say, from 4.00 p.m. to 11 midnight and in respect of 5.00 p.m. to midnight, which implies and infers that they will be doing night business, why don't we start at hours after dinner, after everybody has gone home from offices, why not 7.30 to 11.00 p.m.? With these remarks, I give my limited support to the motion.
MR. TSIN SAI-NIN (in Cantonese): -Mr. Chairman, in principle I feel that we should implement this scheme, but although the Hawkers Select Committee has considered various aspects of this problem, can the implementation be effective or will the problems be multiplied. I am still in doubt. Therefore I have reservations on this motion.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DR. P. C. WONG (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I think from the very beginning, I would say that we should call this scheme a prohibited hawker streets and roads rather than areas. Using the word "area" is rather misleading because people think that this is an area for unlicensed hawkers. But in fact it is the streets or the roads that are used for hawking and from that I think the rents and land value in those areas will be lower and I must also say that hawkers should be supported, but they should give more thoughts in other direction to support them, to house them somewhere else instead on the roads and streets because streets and the roads after all are not used for hawking in its original sense. As Mr. Alex Wu has just said why can't we find some places like unoccupied areas, not necessarily playgrounds but unused car parks and so on to house them. The triad question is also a question that has to be solved because it does not only affect the hawker but shopkeepers in the neighbourhood will eventually be affected. This is also my opinion that shopkeepers in the area should be consulted first before we put down any plan. And with all these points in mind, I reserve my support for this motion.
MR. PETER C. K. CHAN (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, many people have reservations about this motion. I think that they have reasons for their reservations because since the question of hawkers was handed over to the Urban Council, we are full of controversy. There is conflict between hawkers and shopkeepers, conflict between hawkers and car users and conflict between hawkers themselves. If we are afraid of the controversy and afraid of offending people, we should not stand here as Urban Councillors. In actual fact, during the first year when I joined the Urban Council, I was the Chairman of the Hawkers Select Committee. There were a lot of controversies there, but as we go on, there were less and less controversy. But when the economic situation deteriorates, there is even more controversy in the field of hawkers. When shares are at their "height", not many people will scramble for places in the Hawker Permitted Areas, but under our present economic crisis, there will be even greater controversy. I feel that the purpose of this motion is to enable us to have a solution, to let us think about a solution to this problem. I think that there will still be a lot of inherent difficulties, but we must start. Therefore I wholeheartedly support this motion, but there are lots of details which should be looked into by the Hawkers Select Committee.
There will be a lot of conflict between people, but we must patiently try to find a compromise between the various conflicts so that all parties can agree. So, other than supporting this motion, I have decided that on the reconstruction of our Hawkers Select Committee,
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