A group of Keelung residents yesterday protested outside the Ministry of Transportation and Communications building in Taipei, requesting that the ministry halt the demolition of a grocery store at Keelung Port.
The demolition of Kueimei Grocery Store (貴美柑仔店) next to pier No. 16 on the west end of the port is scheduled to take place on Wednesday next week following a court order on Aug. 6, 2012.
The Port and Marine Bureau said it twice asked the district court to postpone the execution of the court order, postponing the demolitions that were scheduled to take place on Nov. 18 last year and Feb. 18.
The bureau said it will have to execute the order this time, because it has reached the delay limit set by the court.
Protesters said the 26m2 grocery store is a witness of the rise and fall of the port and is also a place port workers go to rest.
“The store is a place where people can connect with one another, but the bureau has unilaterally ended the lease with the owner, who is now deemed an illegal occupant because of the lawsuit,” the protesters said.
“How can the owner be an illegal occupant when they have lived there long before the government came in and claimed ownership of the land and when they have been paying rent?” they asked.
The grocery store has been there since the Japanese colonial era, which had a different land management system than the one stipulated by the later Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government, National Chengchi University land economics professor Shu Shih-jung (徐世榮) said.
Shu said that the National Property Act (國有財產法) did not come into force until 1960, but the property predates the law, which is now used to regulate the property, he said.
“We have asked the city government to approach the issue with more tolerance,” he said. “Unfortunately, the city needs revenue and it needs to kick out people like the grocery store’s owner.”
The central government needs to amend the act and land management regulations, he said, adding that the amendments were among the promises that the government made after a protest last month against the forced relocation of local residents.
The bureau said it has no way to verify the grocery store owner’s claim on the property dating back to the Japanese colonial era, adding that the property on which the grocery store was built was registered in 1964.
The bureau said it collected rent from the grocery store’s owner between 1997 and 2006 when the latter leased the property from the bureau.
The lease was terminated in 2006 and was not renewed, the bureau said, adding that the contract lists the rights and obligations of both the bureau and the tenant.
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