The Taipei City Government was urged yesterday to clamp down on illegal Internet cafes, especially near schools, as parents expressed concerns about their impact on children.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lai Su-ru (賴素如) condemned the city government for turning a blind eye to 72 illegal Internet cafes despite tight regulations and demanded that the Commerce Office force illegal Internet cafes to shut down.
“Some illegal Internet cafes have existed in the city for more than eight years. It’s obvious that the city government tacitly allows the existence of these places,” she told a press conference at Taipei City Hall.
Internet cafes gained popularity in Taiwan in the 1990s, but the boom sparked concern from many teachers and parents because some cafes provided unrestricted access to online gambling, pornography and violent games.
Taipei City has 139 registered information-recreation service providers, of which 72 fail to follow regulations, statistics from the office said.
A total of 35 Internet cafes were illegally set up within 200m of elementary schools, Lai said.
Of the illegal Internet cafes, 11 opened as early as 2002, she said.
Members from the Parent Association of Tianmu School District accused the owner of an Internet cafe of running the business too close to Tianmu Elementary School for nine years and urged the city to shut it down.
“The cafe is a gathering spot for a lot of gangsters and we are concerned about the place’s influence on our kids,” a parent surnamed Wu said.
Wu said that several years ago a fight involving knives took place near the cafe.
Director of the office Liu Chia-chun (劉佳均) said that in an attempt to avoid the regulations, some of the illegal Internet cafes were not registered as information-recreation service providers.
The office will conduct a citywide inspection of Internet cafes and force the illegal ones out of business in a month, he said.
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