Chinanews, Beijing, Apr. 18 – In July, Shanghai municipal government will implement a street stand guidebook. By then, local government will not say no to all street stands in Shanghai. Instead, some street stands will be placed at some sections of the road if the government knows what local residents really need them. The new decision is welcomed by both street vendors and local residents, the CCTV international channel reports.
Recently, Tencent website carried out an online survey among some 9,800 people, asking whether they have ever bought anything from street stands. 53% of the respondents say they buy things from street stands “occasionally”, while 44% buy them “from time to time.” Only 3% of the people say they have never bought anything from street stands. The figure indicates that 97% of the people have the experience buying things from street stands, and over 40% have bought things from street stands more than once. This shows that people really need them.
The reasons for their popularity are quite simple. Street stands are convenient and things sold there are cheap. However, there are also problems related with them. Many street stands are dirty and placed disorderly. Sometimes they cause traffic chaos and the food may not be clean. Because of these problems the government once banned all street stands in cities.
However, after street stands were cancelled, the public have often complained that buying things is not as convenient as before. The street may look clean now, but the public have begun to have a rather inconvenient life. When they want to buy something, they will have to go a long way to get them. For old people, life will become even more difficult.
For a long time, driving away street vendors has always been one of the major tasks for city order administrators. It is estimated that in Shanghai, about 50,000 street vendors do not have any license. In the past, city order administrators had a hard time evicting illegal street vendors: when city order administrators arrived, they ran away; and when city order administrators were gone, they appeared again. In future, the Shanghai municipal government will take a more humane approach in dealing with street vendors. While keeping the city order, local government will also make sure that some small shops, such as vegetable sales stores or shoe repairing stands, are available in residential areas.
