简体中文
China's southern Guangdong Province has drafted a regulation to give street vendors the legal right to sell snacks in public places.
Widely seen as an effort to ease tension between unlicensed peddlers and urban management officers known as chengguan, the law will allow food peddlers to conduct their business in designated areas at specified times.
Food vendors can apply for slots free of charge, while the authority will set the available zones and times, after soliciting public opinion.
Operating outside allocated zones and times or selling other products will still be illegal, but observers hope the draft will lead to legislative recognition for the entire vendor population.
Managing street peddling is a contentious issue in many Chinese cities. They might catering to public demand, but vendors obstruct sidewalks and sell unsafe food.
Confrontations between chengguan and street vendors have attracted a lot of public attention. Last year, a watermelon seller in Hunan Province died after a fight with chengguan officers. In April this year, four officers in Zhejiang Province were beaten by a mob after one of them assaulted a passerby who took photos of them.
Though public pressure has made chengguan adopt softer tactics, including hiring female officers and silently staring away perpetrators, vendors remain in legal limbo.
"We peddlers are 'walking ghosts' -- we immediately run away at the sight of chengguan. If I get caught, I'll lose what I've earned from two months work," said a woman called Zhang who sells breakfasts in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. She hopes legal status will put an end to her fugitive life.
If passed, the law could benefit over 800,000 snack makers and sellers in the province and an even larger group of consumers, an official with the Guangzhou chengguan authority said.
China's current food safety laws do not cover small snack makers and peddlers, most of which can not get a license due to the size of their business. Recognizing their legal status would ensure better protection for the consumer, he said.
Whether the government allocation of business zones will solve the problem remains to be seen, said Wu Guolin, professor with the South China University of Technology.
"If the concern is mainly to maintain city order and selected areas are far away from the crowded areas, it will only lead to the resurrection of the 'walking ghosts'," Wu said.
