Amid an ongoing dispute over the legitimacy of vendors operating in Taipei’s Shida Night Market, a local residents’ self-help association yesterday dismissed the vendors’ latest pledge to maintain a clean environment, insisting that their demand for illegal businesses to leave the neighborhood remained unchanged.
More than 400 vendors in the night market recently signed a joint pledge of self-restraint to reduce air and noise pollution, and presented the pledge to the Taipei City Government yesterday.
In the pledge, vendors promised to move closing hours to 11pm, take responsibility for cleaning up the roads and collecting garbage after closing the stores, keeping the music and their voices down and installing more facilities to prevent air pollution.
Photo: Tsai Wei-chi, Taipei Times
However, the vendors’ latest efforts to keep their businesses from being shut down amid a recent crackdown on illegal businesses in the night market did not receive a positive response from local residents.
“Those vendors have been ignoring the law by operating illegally in the area and they are in no position to sign any pledges. Our demand that illegal businesses leave the neighborhood will not change,” association director Liu Chen-wei (劉振偉) said.
Liu also dismissed the city government’s issuing of questionnaires to neighborhood residents to seek their opinion on dealing with the vendors and urged the city not to side with the vendors.
Taipei City Government spokesman Chang Chi-chiang (張其強) said the city’s goal of maintaining a safe and quiet environment for residents remained and while the vendors’ pledge to maintain a clean and quiet environment was welcomed, it would not affect the city’s plan in handling the issue.
“We will continue to demand area vendors follow the regulations, and the city government will hold more public hearings with vendors and residents. Hopefully they can reach a consensus,” Chang said.
Disputes over the night market began after Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) announced in November last year that expansion of the market would not be allowed following a growing number of complaints from residents about the garbage and noise produced by vendors and customers.
In addition to noise and air pollution, some vendors have also violated regulations, as their locations are classified as residential zones. According to the city’s land-use bylaws, roads less than 6m wide in residential zones cannot be used for commercial purposes.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
HORROR STORIES: One victim recounted not realizing they had been stabbed and seeing people bleeding, while another recalled breaking down in tears after fleeing A man on Friday died after he tried to fight the knife-wielding suspect who went on a stabbing spree near two of Taipei’s busiest metro stations, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. The 57-year-old man, identified by his family name, Yu (余), encountered the suspect at Exit M7 of Taipei Main Station and immediately tried to stop him, but was fatally wounded and later died, Chiang said, calling the incident “heartbreaking.” Yu’s family would receive at least NT$5 million (US$158,584) in compensation through the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) insurance coverage, he said after convening an emergency security response meeting yesterday morning. National
RSS