Press Releases
SFH on management of fixed hawker pitches and consultation on licensing scheme for private columbaria
Following is a transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the Secretary
for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a media stand-up session after
attending the meeting of the Panel on Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene
of the Legislative Council today (December 13):
Reporter: (About consultation on licensing scheme for private columbaria.)
Secretary for Food and Health: Private columbaria in Hong Kong have been in
existence for many years and certainly the new legislation to be introduced
is not easy to enact. We have to take into account two different types of
private columbaria. One type is those columbaria come in after the law is
passed. But we have to deal with a lot of columbaria belonging to the second
type that have been in existence for different period of time. What we would
like to consult the public is how we should set certain conditions to
regulate them. What we have decided is some of the columbaria belonging to,
for example the religious bodies and so on, should be exempted because they
have been in existence for many years. And those that are in compliance with
the planning and land lease conditions, as well as the building legislation,
should also be considered. But if they are in existence for only a very
short time, and yet they do not comply with any of the requirements, we will
ask them to consider whether they need to apply for regularisation through
the respective authorities. This will take some time. We will be able to
suspend their liability for a short period of time so that they can comply
with the relevant requirements. There will be certainly some of the
columbaria that would not comply with anything even they are given time. I
think they would need to stop their operation.
Reporter: Will you consider the new mechanism on cancellation of hawker
licence too harsh?
Secretary for Food and Health: Not really. The mechanism is already in
existence for the market stalls. We are just introducing it to the street
stalls at the same time. What we have set in the criteria perhaps would be
even more lenient when comparing with the market stalls.
Reporter: (About further regulation on street stalls.)
Secretary for Food and Health: I do not think we need to introduce any more
tough measures comparing with what we have already presented today. The next
step is to help the stall owners to organise themselves and suggest some
safer construction for their stalls.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Issued at HKT 20:15
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