Periscope
Control of street promotion urged to cut nuisance
by Hilda Fong and Zip Cheung
The government has been urged to regulate street promotion activities after enforcement action has apparently failed to minimize related problems like nuisance and unfair competition.
Commercial promotion activities are commonly found along footbridges, designated pedestrian areas, walkways to railway stations and bus terminals. Salespeople, which range from credit cards to mobile phone, fixed-line telephone, pay television, internet, health and fitness, and driving schools. Pedestrians complain about the nuisance and shop owners are unhappy about the obstruction the street promoters have caused.
ˇ§They (the promotion stands) are blocking our front door,ˇ¨ said a staff from a sportswear shop at Nelson Street in Mong Kok, who identified himself only as Mr Cheng.
Mr Cheng said he found the street promotion activities right in front of his shop disturbing, especially when the promotion stands blocked potential customers from entering his store. He has tried several times to ask the salespeople to remove their stalls. Complaints were also filed to the Food and Environmental
Hygiene Department (FEHD) when the situation became unbearable. He said the FEHD officers would usually come and clear the salespeople away a day or two after receiving his complaints. But he said the salespeople returned and the problem persisted.
The government could not provide the latest figures on the complaints about street promotion activities. But the statistics it last released in May 2005 showed the number of such complaints jumped threefold from 434 in 2002 to 1,202 in 2004.
The number of related verbal warnings issued increased by about seven times, from 495 in 2002 to 3,948 in 2004. But the number of prosecutions rose only from 13 in 2001 to 17 in 2004.
The government, however, had said the complaint figures might contain ˇ§double countingˇ¨, as the same complaint could have been filed with different departments.
OTHER STORIES IN PERISCOPE
Street promoters face company scrutiny, arrest
Same street, different campaigns
Street promoters set up stalls and approach passers-by
in a pedestrian area in Mong Kok.
