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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

I am sure that my fellow members will agree that patrons of these establishments have a right to require the premises to be satisfactorily ventilated, air-conditioned, free from infestation of vermin, supplied with clean drinking utensils, provided with adequate toilet facilities and fire escapes as well as to be structurally sound. All this can only be adequately covered and kept under proper control if these places are licensed as restaurants.

Unfortunately, the issue of a liquor licence and a restaurant licence for an establishment cannot be synchronized as they are authorized under different ordinances. Accordingly, the Board cannot withhold the issue of a liquor licence when no objection to its application is received. The liquor licence is then endorsed with a condition to the effect that it is valid only when the premises are also covered by a restaurant licence issued by the Council.

With regard to the building complex in Tsim Sha Tsui, which I mentioned earlier in this statement, a total number of 15 applications for liquor licences have been received. Applications for either a general restaurant or a light refreshment restaurant licence have also been received in respect of all the premises. Up to 6.6.79, 12 liquor licences have been issued, and of this number only 5 are covered by parallel restaurant licences. The others have not yet obtained their restaurant licences because they have not yet completed the licensing requirements. In fact, some of them only submitted their air-conditioning plans for approval as late as the end of April and early May. I can assure members that there has been no delay in processing the applications for restaurant licences to cover liquor licences.

Those who are not in possession of valid liquor licences and have commenced business of selling and serving liquor are therefore subject to legal proceedings instituted by the Police and the Urban Services Department.

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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The term 'garden of remembrance' is defined in By-law 3 of the Cremation and Gardens of Remembrance By-laws as any place specified in Part VII of the Schedule to the Ordinance. Construction of the reprovisioned Diamond Hill Crematorium is expected to be completed by mid-July 1979 and it is therefore necessary to include Diamond Hill in the Schedule so that the appropriate section (Part IV) of the By-laws will apply to its garden of remembrance. These By-laws include provision for the scattering of ashes in a garden of remembrance.

I beg to move.

MR AMBROSE K. C. CHOI (in English): Mr Chairman, as I am the Vice-Chairman of the Environment Hygiene Select Committee, I second this motion. The question was put.

The motion was carried with 16 votes for and 2 abstentions. (The Chairman and the Vice-Chairman did not vote.)

ADJOURNMENT—4.20pm

CHAIRMAN (in English): Council stands adjourned until Tuesday, 17 July 1979, at 4.00pm

MOTION

MRS GRACE HO, CHAIRMAN OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL HYGIENE SELECT COMMITTEE, moved the following motion:

'RESOLVED that the Public Health and Urban Services (Amendment of Part VII of Fifth Schedule) Order 1979 be made under section 124A(4) of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance, Cap. 132.'

She said (in English): Mr Chairman, As the Chairman of the Environmental Hygiene Select Committee, I rise on the motion standing in my name:

"THAT the Public Health and Urban Services (Amendment of Part VII of Fifth Schedule) Order 1979 be made under section 124A(4) of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance, Cap. 132."

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