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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
Director of Urban Services can apply to the court for a Closure Order to physically close the premises.
Members have recently expressed concern that the current legislation does not allow the Council to take quick action to close unlicensed food premises or those food premises which pose a serious hygiene risk to the public. The issue has been considered in detail by the Public Health Select Committee on two occasions, the last being on 8.10.97. The Director of Urban Services has been asked by the Committee to submit proposals for amending the current legislation so as to enable the Council to confer administrative power on the Director to effect immediate closure of unlicensed food premises and food premises with very poor hygiene conditions. The Director has been asked to provide a detailed response.
MR. KAM NAI-WAI (in Cantonese):-I want to ask Mr. CHAN a question. I believe that most residents are astonished at the fact that a restaurant without a licence should manage to exist for more than a year. I want to know whether under the existing law, we could disclose the names of the few restaurants which continue to operate although their licences have been cancelled by us, so as to warn the public against patronizing those restaurants which continue to operate without licences. This is the first question.
The second question, Mr. NG only asks in his paper about the situation in the past two years. What I want to know is whether there are any restaurants which have been operating without licences for more than 2 years. While one of them had its licence cancelled in May 1996, are there any restaurants which are still operating although their licences were cancelled even earlier? I wonder whether Mr. CHAN can provide the information. This is the second question.
I want to follow up with a third question. I understand that licensed restaurants are normally inspected once every 2 months. As far as I know, unlicensed ones may be inspected once every month. Would we step up inspection of the unlicensed restaurants and institute prosecution action, so that the public would have no misunderstanding that unlicensed operation is better than licensed operation?
MR. JOSEPH CHAN YUEK-SUT (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, about the feasibility of disclosing the names of the restaurants. The names of the restaurants may be disclosed if the restaurants are convicted by court. As to whether it is possible to disclose the names under other circumstances, we did discuss this at a meeting of the Public Health Select Committee and the legal advice is that we still do not possess the appropriate legal authority to disclose the names of unlicensed restaurants. When they are convicted by the court, their particulars may be disclosed, but in circumstances other than this, we still do not have the appropriate legal authority.