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I share the feelings of my elected colleagues about hawkers because that is also my feeling, I can understand very well.
About Mr. CHEONG-LEEN'S point: Time of implementation. Although you, Mr. Chairman, have already said, most of our hawkers have already renewed their licences in April and in October, so half of the licences will expire in October next year and these licence fees will not be increased until October 1976, and half of them will be increased in April 1976, so there is no undue hardship for our hawking Members. Mrs. ELLIOTT spoke about the arrest of hawkers. I can assure Mrs. ELLIOTT from my experience in Courts, there are very few cases where hawkers are arrested because of obstruction unless those hawkers constantly or deliberately cause obstruction on the street. Most of the hawkers arrested are because they have no licence. So, that probably should assure Mrs. ELLIOTT. About the question of fairness, I would say that our first step is to protect the licensed hawkers, but in what exact way we are going to do this is the decision of the Select Committee. As Mrs. ELLIOTT put it there are some ways of marking 40,000 spaces, that was a suggestion. It is not out of the question that such a measure would not be taken by the Council. Of course, we may consider other measures. So, that is more or less what I would like to say in answer to my colleagues about this question. In short, I am grateful that at this meeting all my colleagues spoke from their hearts about the hawker problem. Certainly as the Chairman of the Hawkers Select Committee, I will listen to all these views with sympathy and with attention, and I urge Members to vote for the original motion which is proposed by me.
The question on the amending motion was put.
The motion to amend was lost with four votes for, thirteen votes against and three abstentions.
The question on the original motion was then put.
The motion was carried with twelve votes for, six votes against and two abstentions. The Chairman did not vote.
ADJOURNMENT (5.45 p.m.)
CHAIRMAN (in English):-This concludes the business of today's meeting. I will now adjourn Council until Tuesday, 20th January, 1976 at 2.30 p.m. I wish you a very happy Christmas and a most prosperous New Year.
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