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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Hawker Permitted Areas: Every time I ask about illegal hawkers, the Department always says, "There is no need for them to hawk illegally in the streets; they can go to the HPAs." This answer is a dishonest one. HPAs are enormous shopping areas monopolized by triads, making big profits for the vice gangs and the corrupt in the Government. Even if this were not true, how can our thirty to forty thousand illegal hawkers be accommodated in so few hawker permitted areas? If we tell hawkers to go the HPAs, we have to make sure we can accommodate them. But are there enough spaces? Are they expected to pay the triads? I must presume that they are to pay triads, since no one is willing to look into my allegations.
Magistrates have asked me what would happen if all the thirty or forty thousand unlicensed hawkers were arrested in one day. Well, apart from needing the Government stadium as a court, we also run the risk of rioting. And if we cannot treat all thirty to forty thousand equally, how are the unfortunates chosen for prosecution?
Magistrates have also asked me how they are expected to punish hawkers so unequally. For example, one hawker has fifty dollars' worth of goods confiscated for illegal hawking; another has five thousand dollars' worth of goods confiscated for the identical offence. Do fines for traffic offences vary with the value of a car? And should magistrates confiscate cars for illegal parking causing obstruction?
In fact, this mandatory confiscation is not only absurd, but it is totally unjust. It is not intended as justice, but just as an easy way out for our own failure to regulate hawking. We escape our responsibility by putting it onto the magistrates, and I can tell you that they don't like it.
Some members of the Judiciary have assured me personally that they will still confiscate the goods of persistent illegal hawkers, especially those selling restricted goods, but they wish to have discretion to decide which hawkers are creating no danger or obstruction or which are capable of finding other kinds of work. At present the law leaves them no discretion and this is deplorable: it is a negation of legal rights to the people and a denial of independence to the Judiciary.
I would like now to put forward a few proposals—proposals which I have made many times and which have been ignored. But I believe that unless we are prepared to listen to and try to put into practice some of these proposals, or other similar proposals, this problem will never be solved, and we shall bring only shame and hatred upon ourselves and all connected with our hawker work:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
131
First of all we must recognize that apart from earning their own living, hawkers provide a service to the whole community, just as real a service and even more universal than bus services, ferry services and other utilities.
Having admitted this, our solution must be similar to that by which we solve the problems of road transport and traffic; that is, we must provide sufficient space to carry out hawking on a scale equal to the demands of the community. In other words, we need land for bazaars, in places where hawkers are needed, and this land should be reclaimed just as land is reclaimed for MTR, PWD works and other public services.
Reduce the number of hawker sites needed by applying other regulations that exist, such as reducing large scale operations and multiple licence-holding, by people now rich enough to rent premises for their businesses. For some reason which only the authorities can explain, these big syndicates escape, while small operators suffer.
Demand proper control on triad activities, because unless this is done, we can never solve the hawker problems. As soon as land or sites are available, these are often handed over to triads, and the genuine hawkers remain our problem. This allegation can be proved by the number of illegal triad-controlled hawkers operating at every new and viable newspaper site, while genuine newspaper hawkers cannot find a viable site.
Finally, and perhaps most important, we must recognize that hawker control is our job. We cannot hand on our responsibilities to the courts, which are not equipped to investigate the injustices they are forced to inflict on innocent, hardworking people.
Mr. Chairman, I beg to move that we eliminate this escapist method of dealing with illegal hawkers, restore independence to the Judiciary, and get down to the task of proper planning for hawking. I move the motion standing in my name.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI (in English): —Mr. Chairman, I am happy to second Mrs. ELLIOTT's Motion. In the course of her address she has outlined the history of this matter and I can therefore be brief. In practice, the mandatory forfeiture works considerable hardship. Sometimes hawkers without a licence, because we do not give them a licence, invest all their little capital in buying goods, get arrested, and then they are automatically forfeited, so that they are thrown back on social welfare relief. I have known of specific cases of this happening.
Page 84 of 174
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Page 84 of 174
130
4.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Hawker Permitted Areas: Every time I ask about illegal hawkers, the Department always says, "There is no need for them to hawk illegally in the streets; they can go to the HPAs." This answer is a dishonest one. HPAs are enormous shopping areas monopolized by triads, making big profits for the vice gangs and the corrupt in the Government. Even if this were not true, how can our thirty to forty thousand illegal hawkers be accommodated in so few hawker permitted areas? If we tell hawkers to go the HPAs, we have to make sure we can accommodate them. But are there enough spaces? Are they expected to pay the triads? I must presume that they are to pay triads, since no one is willing to look into my allegations.
Magistrates have asked me what would happen if all the thirty or forty thousand unlicensed hawkers were arrested in one day. Well, apart from needing the Government stadium as a court, we also run the risk of rioting. And if we cannot treat all thirty to forty thousand equally, how are the unfortunates chosen for prosecution?
Magistrates have also asked me how they are expected to punish hawkers so unequally. For example, one hawker has fifty dollars' worth of goods confiscated for illegal hawking; another has five thousand dollars' worth of goods confiscated for the identical offence. Do fines for traffic offences vary with the value of a car? And should magistrates confiscate cars for illegal parking causing obstruction?
In fact, this mandatory confiscation is not only absurd, but it is totally unjust. It is not intended as justice, but just as an easy way out for our own failure to regulate hawking. We escape our responsi- bility by putting it onto the magistrates, and I can tell you that they don't like it.
Some members of the Judiciary have assured me personally that they will still confiscate the goods of persistent illegal hawkers, especially those selling restricted goods, but they wish to have dis- cretion to decide which hawkers are creating no danger or obstruction or which are capable of finding other kinds of work. At present the law leaves them no discretion and this is deplorable: it is a negation of legal rights to the people and a denial of independence to the Judiciary.
I would like now to put forward a few proposals-proposals which I have made many times and which have been ignored. But I believe that unless we are prepared to listen to and try to put into practice some of these proposals, or other similar proposals, this problem will never be solved, and we shall bring only shame and hatred upon ourselves and all connected with our hawker work:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
131
First of all we must recognize that apart from earning their own living, hawkers provide a service to the whole community, just as real a service and even more universal than bus services, ferry services and other utilities.
Having admitted this, our solution must be similar to that by which we solve the problems of road transport and traffic; that is, we must provide sufficient space to carry out hawking on a scale equal to the demands of the community. In other words, we need land for bazaars, in places where hawkers are needed, and this land should be reclaimed just as land is reclaimed for MTR, PWD works and other public services.
Reduce the number of hawker sites needed by applying other regulations that exist, such as reducing large scale operations and multiple licence-holding, by people now rich enough to rent premises for their businesses. For some reason which only the authorities can explain, these big syndicates escape, while small operators suffer.
Demand proper control on triad activities, because unless this is done, we can never solve the hawker problems. As soon as land or sites are available, these are often handed over to triads, and the genuine hawkers remain our problem. This allegation can be proved by the number of illegal triad-controlled hawkers operating at every new and viable newspaper site, while genuine newspaper hawkers cannot find a viable site.
Finally, and perhaps most important, we must recognize that hawker control is our job. We cannot hand on our responsibilities to the courts, which are not equipped to investigate the injustices they are forced to inflict on innocent, hardworking people.
Mr. Chairman, I beg to move that we eliminate this escapist method of dealing with illegal hawkers, restore independence to the Judiciary, and get down to the task of proper planning for hawking. I move the motion standing in my name.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI (in English): --Mr. Chairman, I am happy to second Mrs. ELLIOTT's Motion. In the course of her address she has outlined the history of this matter and I can therefore be brief. In practice, the mandatory forfeiture works considerable hardship. Sometimes hawkers without a licence, because we do not give them a licence, invest all their little capital in buying goods, get arrested, and then they are automatically forfeited, so that they are thrown back on social welfare relief. I have known of specific cases of this happening.
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