Minutes of the 3Rd Meeting of the Food, Environment, Hygiene & Works Committee (2014-2015)

Minutes of the 3rd Meeting of the

Food, Environment, Hygiene & Works Committee (2014-2015)
Central and Western District Council

Date: 5th June 2014

Time: 2:30 p.m.

Location: Conference Room

14/F, Harbour Building

38 Pier Road, Central, Hong Kong

Present:

Chairman

Mr LEE Chi-hang, Sidney*

Vice-chairman

Dr Malcolm LAM*

District Council Members

Co-opted Members

Guests

Item 4(i)

Item 4(ii)

Item 5

Item 6

Item 7

Item 8

Item 9

Item 10

Item 11

Item 12

Item 13

In Attendance

Secretary

Opening Remarks

The Chairman welcomed Members and representatives from government departments to the 3rd meeting of the Food, Environment, Hygiene & Works Committee (FEHWC) (2014-15). The Chairman also welcomed Mr TSANG Chi-pan, Assistant Police Community Relations Officer (Central District) of the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF), Mr SIT Wai, Neighbourhood Police Coordinator, Police Community Relations Office (Central District) of the HKPF and Mr Harry TSANG, Engineer 16 (HK Island Division 1) of the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) who attended the meeting on behalf of Mr LAU Kar-ming, Mr TSE Pui-hung and Ms YAU Man-shan, Doris respectively. The Chairman welcomed Miss LAU Wai-yan, who attended the meeting for the first time succeeding Mr CHAN Wing-hang as a Co-opted Member of the FEHWC after his resignation effective from 1 May.

(2:33 pm)

2. As there were no comments from Members, the agenda was adopted.

(2:33 pm)

3. Members had no comments on the minutes of the 2nd meeting of FEHWC and the minutes were confirmed.

(2:33 pm – 2:34 pm)

4. The Chairman said the Secretariat had circulated the following papers to Members for perusal:

(2:34 pm – 2:37 pm)

5.Miss Cheryl CHOW, District Officer (Central and Western), reported that various departments would continue with the repair, maintenance and clearance of drainage as well as the follow-up work on the misconnection of drainage systems in private buildings. The relevant information was set out in the discussion paper in detail.

6.The Chairman said that as the issue had been discussed regularly at the meetings of the Central and Western District Management Committee, he thus proposed to cancel this standing item and reclassify the relevant documents as information documents. The Committee unanimously endorsed the Chairman’s suggestion.

(2:37 pm – 2:39 pm)

7.Mr CHEUNG Hoi-yin, Engineer/Project Management of the Drainage Services Department (DSD), reported to the Committee that three projects had been completed since the last report.

8.The Chairman suggested cancelling this standing item as the DSD had already completed the sewerage works in the Central and Western (C&W) District (contract no.: DC/2007/19). He welcomed Members to submit papers for discussion in the future if they had any queries regarding the projects of the DSD. The Committee unanimously endorsed the Chairman’s suggestion.

(2:39 pm – 3:57 pm)

9.Mr Eric HUI, Assistant Director (2) of the Home Affairs Department (HAD), briefed Members on the paper as follows:

(i) The public consultation would last for four months from 14 March 2014 to 14 July 2014.

(ii) If Members found that they did not have enough time to discuss the SFE issue during the meeting, or if they had any comments after the meeting, they were welcomed to express their views to the HAD by email, mail or fax.

(iii) The Panel on Home Affairs of the Legislative Council (LegCo) would conduct a public hearing on 7 June to listen to the views of the public, various sectors of the society and stakeholders on the proposed enhanced measures against SFEs. Members of the Central &Western District Council (C&WDC) were welcomed to participate.

10.Mr Francis CHU, Senior Consultant of the HAD, gave a Powerpoint presentation to Members on the paper as follows:

(i) This public consultation on enhanced measures against SFEs was responsible by the HAD, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), the Lands Department (LandsD), the HKPF and the Buildings Department (BD).

(ii) Currently there were six relevant laws and four law enforcement departments to deal with SFEs, including the FEHD, the HKPF, the LandsD and the BD. They would enforce the laws according to relevant ordinances as required. There were limitations in existing legal tools, such as long lead time for prosecution, light penalties and the existence of a notification period that made the departments unable to handle the problem of SFEs in a more efficient and effective manner.

(iii) The consultation mainly covered two aspects: (1) to set up a fixed penalty system and (2) to strengthen participation of the community and the District Councils (DCs)

(iv) The proposed fixed penalty system should bear the following features: (1) to target those direct and obvious cases; (2) to send Fixed Penalty Notice to the person-in-charge present at the shop. The following points should be taken into account when deciding the level of penalty: (i) the gravity of the crime; (ii) the level of penalty of other crimes which were of similar gravity; and (iii) the current level of fixed penalty stipulated by the Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness Offences) Ordinance (Cap.570) (that is $1,500).

(v) To strengthen the role of the DCs, the Government could invite them to provide assistance in the following aspects: (a) setting priority for law enforcement against SFEs for relevant departments’ consideration; (b) proposing SFE black spots for higher enforcement priority in accordance with the agreed criteria for consideration of the departments concerned; (c) participating in public education and publicity work against SFEs; (d) monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of the joint operations together with the law enforcement departments; and (e) assisting the law enforcement departments to monitor the trend of complaints against SFEs.

(vi) Among the issues discussed in the consultation paper, the Government hoped the public would express their views on the following items in particular: (a) Do you support enhancing the enforcement actions against SFEs? (b) Do you support the introduction of a fixed penalty system to handle the problem of SFEs? (c) What is the appropriate amount of the fixed penalty? (d) Do you have any doubt on the fixed penalty system? (e) How to achieve a balance between enhancing law enforcement and protecting the livelihood of shop operators? (f) How much should the DCs be involved in handling the problem of SFEs? (g) What factors should the DCs consider when they advise the Government on the law enforcement priority for SFEs; and (h) How to enhance the education and publicity work against SFEs?

11.The Chairman asked Members to express their views. The main points of their comments were as follows:

(i) Mr CHAN Choi-hi supported the introduction of a fixed penalty system. He also opined that the relevant law enforcement departments should review the existing laws. He advised these departments to consider how arguments could be avoided during the enforcement actions after the fixed penalty system was introduced. He disagreed with the idea of letting the C&WDC propose locations with SFEs for higher enforcement priority.

(ii) Ms CHENG Lai-king pointed out that though the C&WDC had followed up on the issue of domestic helpers gathering at World-Wide House during holidays, the situation continued. She enquired about how the department would solve the problem. In addition, she mentioned the salted fish stalls in the vicinity of Eastern Street, pointing out that they had also occupied the public space in front of or around them during holidays for business activities. She asked how the department would handle the SFEs of specialty stalls and if any exemption mechanism would be introduced. She was also concerned about whether the shop operators would pass the penalty onto customers. She asked whether pedestrians could sue the shop operators or the Government if they were injured by the goods placed outside the shops.

(iii) Mr MAN Chi-wah supported the introduction of a fixed penalty system. He suggested introducing an appeal system to handle the arguments with shop operators during enforcement action. He agreed that in order to implement the policy effectively, the amount of penalty should not be less than $1,500. He disagreed with the idea of letting the C&WDC determine the enforcement priority so as to avoid being unfair to shops. He suggested law enforcement departments step up inspections against the shops being complained.

(iv) Miss LO Yee-hang agreed with Ms CHENG Lai-king’s views. She asked the relevant law enforcement departments how they would handle the street obstruction problem near World-Wide House caused by domestic helpers during holidays. For serious cases, she agreed that enforcement action should be stepped up. For petty cases, she suggested the Government loosen its grip, for example to issue warning letters instead. She pointed out that cases which caused immediate danger to traffic or pedestrians should be categorised as serious obstruction cases. Moreover, law enforcement departments should exercise discretion when handling cases of shops placing their goods on the streets during festivals. She suggested that the penalty should have deterrent effect while taking into account the affordability of shops at the same time. She opined that public education and publicity against SFEs should be enhanced.