XN000022-1972-08-16 — Page 10

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Wednesday, August 16, 1972

HAWKER BILL TO BE APPLIED "HUMANELY AND IMPARTIALLY"

*

The Acting Director of Urban Services, the Hon. A.P. Richardson, today

reassured the general public that the Public Health and Urban Services (Amendment)

(No.4) Bill 1972, which deals with hawking, would be applied "both humanely

and impartially" when it was passed into law.

He described the amending Bill as "essential" if hawkers were to be

effectively controlled and if the "Keep Hong Kong Clean" Campaign was to succeed

in dirty hawker areas,

He was speaking in the Legislative Council while moving the second

reading of the Bill.

The Bill seeks to extend the powers of the authority to make new

regulations, to empower the Commissioner for Transport to declare any street to

be set aside for hawking purposes, and to provide in certain instances, for the

mandatory forfeiture of commodities and equipment belonging to hawkers.

Mr. Richardson said in some areas, hawking now made any form of

cleansing virtually impossible and as a result, rats and flies bred freely and

the nearby residents suffered quite unnecessarily from the dirt and filth

generated by "conglomerations of hawkers."

However, he assured the Council that as part of the build-up of the

"Keep Hong Kong Clean" Campaign, the assistance of all hawkers and their

associations would be sought.

The Acting Director said the Government had for long been concerned about

the ineffectiveness of existing hawker control measures, under which a hawker

could go back in business on the streets with his returned equipment and

/commodities

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