The New Taipei City (新北市) Government, apparently in a bid to curb increasing cases of groups of young people having drug parties in hotels and recreational facilities, has asked entertainment establishments to strengthen self-management by informing the police when more than six people aged 30 and under check into rooms with KTV and special multimedia facilities.
The new measure took effect yesterday morning and prompted mixed reactions.
The city government told a news conference on Friday that so far this year the police have registered a total of 61 cases, involving 265 people, of drug use in hotels, guest houses and motels. Among them, 16 cases, involving 165 people, were drug parties with more than six participants, with an average of 10 people per party, it added.
To prevent more people from holding drug parties at hotels, guest houses and the like, the city government’s Public Safety Inspection Team has decided to employ Article 23 of the Regulations for the Administration of Hotels (旅館業管理規則), as a basis for the new measure. The article requires that hotel administrators register guests’ information.
Effective yesterday, hotels in the city are required to inform their local police station as soon as more than six young people aged 30 and under check into special types of rooms that have multimedia facilities installed.
Establishments that fail to report such cases may face a fine of between NT$15,000 and NT$50,000, in line with Article 55 of the Act for the Development of Tourism (發展觀光條例).
Hotel operators had mixed feelings about the policy. While some said it was troublesome and that “young people often show low degrees of cooperation,” others said that the policy would make it easier to request guests’ information. They added that reducing the number of drug-using guests could strengthen the positive image of hotels, as well as attract “normal consumers.”
A hotel operator surnamed Chen (陳) said it is already difficult to have guests register their personal information when they check in, and “now it would be even more troublesome to require young people to register their personal information.”
Another operator, surnamed Huang (黃), noting that the new measure targets special rooms with KTV facilities, said people who intend to “misbehave” could easily get around the measure by “squeezing into standard rooms.”
He also asked, since the new policy only targets cases where more than six people check in at the same time, “what if two people check in and four other people arrive later as visiting guests? How are we then to request that they all register their personal information?”
New Taipei City Hotel Association chairperson Lin Chung-tai (林忠泰), on the other hand, was positive about the policy.
When drug users leave a hotel room, the room often looks like it has been bombed, he said, adding that as the quality of customers has improved over recent years, he believes hotels can attract many better guests as long as the hotels provide a good environment.
New Taipei City councilors across party lines disapproved of the policy targeting a selected group of customers and behavior.
“This is wrong,” New Taipei City Councilor Chou Sheng-kao (周勝考) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said.
“People enjoy freedom of movement and have the freedom to consume whatever they want wherever they want to, and having hotels report information to the police without the customers behaving suspiciously seems to be a human rights violation,” he said.
“It’s like being in a police state,” New Taipei City Councilor Chiang Yung-chang (江永昌) of the Democratic Progressive Party said, adding it is inappropriate for government agencies to expand their administrative powers without a legal basis.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique