FEATURE-Bangkok street vendors: from Michelin star to fighting eviction

[snoop1130]

FEATURE-Bangkok street vendors: from Michelin star to fighting eviction

By Rina Chandran, Thomson Reuters Foundation

 

Image: Google.com

 

BANGKOK, Sept 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Jay Fai, a 70-year-old street food seller in Bangkok known for her crab omelettes, won a Michelin star last year at the launch of the city’s first restaurant guide, few locals were surprised.

 

“Auntie Fai” is as renowned for the ski goggles she wears to protect her eyes from hot oil splashing, as she is for her thick crab curry and dry congee that customers, including many who drive up in luxury cars, swear by.

 

But the afterglow from the global adulation was short-lived, as city officials soon resumed a drive to “return the pavement to pedestrians” evicting hundreds of vendors selling food, clothing and trinkets, for greater “order and hygiene”.

 

Earlier this month, hundreds of hawkers marched to city hall following a daytime ban on vending on the sidewalks of Khao San road, a favourite haunt of backpackers.

 

What began as disparate protests by vendors facing marching orders has now morphed into an organised citywide movement that has also won support from academics and other public figures against the perceived heavy-handedness of officials.

 

“Street vending occupies an important space in Thai culture and history, helping to build community bonds, enabling women to work, innovating in Thai cuisine, and enriching families with no opportunity otherwise,” said Chawadee Nualkhair, a food blogger.

 

“Shepherding them into ‘centres’ or eradicating them completely leaves a huge hole in the city’s ecosystem.”

 

“This hole will inevitably be filled by big corporations” like food companies and department stores, she added.

 

The crackdown on street vendors is part of a wider effort by Thailand’s military government, which came to power in a 2014 coup, to impose order in a city famous for its vibrant nightlife and cheap and varied street food.

 

Authorities are also removing shanties along the Chao Phraya River to build a promenade, and have forced out a community near an old fort to make way for a public park.

 

Civic groups say the evictions mostly target poor residents who have little legal recourse, as they have no formal rights.

 

“A war is being waged against the city’s own people, the poorest and most vulnerable,” said Poonsap Tulaphan, director of HomeNet Thailand, which supports informal workers.

 

“Many of these vendors have been selling in the same spot for decades, and rely on their earnings to support themselves and their families. Without that, they have nothing,” she said.

 

EYES AND EARS

 

Across Asia, governments keen to modernise booming cities increasingly view street vendors as a hindrance, and as usurpers of public spaces meant for formal businesses and wealthy residents.

 

But hawkers enhance the business environment, make localities more dynamic and walkable, and help deter crime by being the “eyes and ears” of the neighbourhood, said Narumol Nirathron, a professor at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

 

From Bangkok’s older floating markets to an estimated 240,000 street vendors today, they also contribute to a functioning food system with cheap meals and snacks, particularly for less well-to-do residents, Narumol said.

 

Narumol’s research showed that 87 percent of Bangkok’s residents buy food or other items from street vendors.

 

Of the more than one-quarter of residents who buy from them every day, many earn less than 9,000 baht a month ($275).

 

Of the vendors themselves, more than 70 percent are women, and more than two-thirds are over the age of 40 and have little education, making them particularly vulnerable, Narumol said.

 

The recent crackdown has hit them hard: licensed vendors are down by thousands, and tens of thousands more may be banned in 683 spots in the city, said Rewat Chobtham, president of the Network of Thai Vendors for Sustainable Development.

 

“This is the most devastating policy of the government,” he said.

 

“The cancellation of licences and evictions have resulted in vendors losing their life savings, pulling their children out of school, and losing assets such as homes and vehicles,” he said.

 

They are not alone.

 

Street vendors are facing animosity everywhere, as officials try to make their cities look like those in the United States or Europe, said Sarah Reed of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), an advocacy group.

 

“Let’s call it what it is: elitism and corporate gentrification,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

 

“This is particularly misguided given that many of the cities they seek to emulate are now striving to attract vendors and street markets to create the kind of street life that Southeast Asian cities like Bangkok have in abundance.”

 

MESSENGER GROUP

 

Bangkok’s street vendors, unlike the city’s “motorbike taxis” who are also facing increasing restrictions, had not organised into a unified lobbying group before.

 

That changed following vendor evictions in 2016 and 2017. As group leaders from across the city met at forums and at government agencies, they began to chat and coordinate their actions via messenger apps, said Rewat.

 

The Network of Thai Vendors for Sustainable Development, established in April, has more than 7,500 members from 25 districts of the city, he said.

 

They are being backed by academics and lawyers, who have asked Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to reconsider vending regulations.

 

In an open letter handed to the prime minister and to city officials earlier this month, the network demanded that those evicted be allowed to return to their old spots.

 

They also asked for formal recognition of their right to earn livelihoods, and to be allowed to participate in decision-making on vending.

 

“We will consider their requests seriously and decide on a course of action,” said a government spokesman.

 

A new committee, with vendor representatives as well as officials from the Bangkok metropolitan authority and the traffic police, will be set up within 30 days, he said.

 

A new vending law is needed to address issues like hygiene, stall regulation and taxes, said Rewat.

 

“We need a strategy that does not evict street vendors. Ending this crisis is urgent and critical,” he said.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-9-17

[ezzra]

14 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

Michelin star

You say Michelin star to Thai authorities and they automatically thinks that you're talking about good quality tiers, street food should be preserved, as for Auntie Fai, i hear that she prices her crab omelet as if her shop is in downtown Paris, but that another story...

[mok199]

Goggles from splashing grease,5555..mabey try ''less oil''...

[Thian]

9 hours ago, ezzra said:

You say Michelin star to Thai authorities and they automatically thinks that you're talking about good quality tiers, street food should be preserved, as for Auntie Fai, i hear that she prices her crab omelet as if her shop is in downtown Paris, but that another story...

To me it seems that the Michelin star group just wanted to give some stars in BKK...how can they give stars to a streetvendor on a filthy thai street full of rats, cats and dogs with rabies? 

 

Nothing wrong with lowering their standards but they shouldn't call it the real michelin star imo.

[LazySlipper]

Seems to me that is she is so famous she should have opened up her own restaurant a long time ago.

 

Thais definitely need some kind of money management courses in their education...

[PremiumLane]

A well written, serious piece on the problem of gentrification in Bangkok, and the squeezing out of working class people and what do we get from the TV posters - irrelevant ramblings and dumb Thai bashing. Colour me surprised. 

[anon537687643]

Your use of “Thai Bashing” should be sure directed at “Thais bashing Thais “.Thais want most of these sidewalk blocking,trash collecting removed. It’s not done in response to any Falang!


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[webfact]

Bangkok's street vendors decry evictions as authorities clean up

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre

 

Street vendors sell food in Khaosan Road in Bangkok, Thailand, September 12, 2018. Picture taken September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - "Quick, move!" Bangkok street vendors call to each other as they rush carts laden with souvenirs and snacks from the city's bustling Ramkamhaeng road, pushing their wares into an alley before the police spot them.

 

Once the backbone of Bangkok's renowned roadside economy, thousands of licensed street vendors have spent much of the past two years being shifted to locations they deem less favourable, by authorities bent on improving hygiene and imposing order.

 

Thailand's street stalls are usually a magnet for tourists in a country where tourism is a major source of income, and which has welcomed record numbers of travellers in recent years.

 

The military junta, however, has been keen to improve standards of living, particularly ahead of a general election pencilled in for early next year - the first since it assumed power in 2014.

 

"The pavement is the pavement. It is not a place to sell things," said Wanlop Suwandee, the Bangkok governor's chief adviser. "We are doing this in earnest, to return the pavement to the people."

 

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has moved 20,000 street vendors from 478 locations since 2016. It told Reuters it has identified 205 more locations to address, and that in recent weeks it has increased the rate of clearance. Vendors who return to cleared areas risk being fined.

 

But some relocated street vendors said much-reduced foot traffic at their new pitches is threatening their livelihoods.

 

In response, 1,200 members of the Network of Thai Vendors for Sustainable Development marched to the prime minister's office on Sept. 4 and submitted a letter demanding a halt to evictions and calling on officials to find a solution together.

 

"They can clean up the streets but please don't get rid of us entirely," said Lewan Choptha, 54, a souvenir stall owner and one of group's leaders.

 

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

Street vendors play a crucial role in Thailand's economy and are a source of affordable food, experts say. Professor Narumol Nirathron of Thammasat University surveyed 200 people last year and found 87 percent bought items from street vendors.

 

"It doesn't just affect the vendors. It affects the customer as well - low income earners, for example, or those who have to travel a long way to work in Bangkok," said Chidchanok Samantrakul from Women In Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) and co-author of a report on street vendors.

 

They are also of cultural significance. The government of nearby Singapore long ago moved street sellers to hawker centres, and last month proposed their inclusion in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

 

Having come to regard sales on a public thoroughfare as a nuisance, Bangkok authorities are similarly moving street sellers to alternative locations such as indoor markets.

 

"This is nothing to do with the election," Wanlop said. "People have complained they can't travel safely on the pavement ... sometimes they have to walk on the road."

 

However, some street vendors said business conditions at new locations are so dire that they were prepared to risk fines of as much as 300 baht ($9.19) to go back to their former pitches.

 

"It was a narrow market on the second floor of building. It was impossible to sell anything," said a seafood seller who opted to return. "Before, I had enough to pay for school, water and electricity. Now we have to rely on loan sharks who charge us 20 percent interest."

 

($1 = 32.6600 baht)

 

(Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-09-18

[anon537687643]

Just have the city laws that for Decades were accepted ! “Selling on public footpath from 7pm -2 am “ . Problem with these vendors you give them an inch they want a yard


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[AsiaHand]

1 hour ago, PremiumLane said:

A well written, serious piece on the problem of gentrification in Bangkok, and the squeezing out of working class people and what do we get from the TV posters - irrelevant ramblings and dumb Thai bashing. Colour me surprised. 

Since the people of (LOS---LOIR) have no say in any matter of how the government runs their lives the police and government can and do implement  various stupid laws and restrictions with no fear of reprisals..Whit this idea in mind here you have some joker in an official  post with very little brains thinking that since he and his friends never use the sidewalk and street food vendors and he sees them as an eye sore drawing crowds  that are slowing down his car on the street then they should be removed .The government run the government like most Thai drivers drive their cars on the highway,They see where they are at and try to see their destination,but see nothing in between as they careen their cars down the highway without any regards of what could or will occur in the immediate. ,. Ah yes  its LOIR, Land Of Ignorance and Restrictions.

[CLW]

Your use of “Thai Bashing” should be sure directed at “Thais bashing Thais “.Thais want most of these sidewalk blocking,trash collecting removed. It’s not done in response to any Falang!


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

That's utter nonsense.
To which Thai people have you talked?
The majority I know love street food and street markets.
Also they offer cheap prices and good value.
I'm just guessing but probably you just frequent with hi so thais.

[CLW]

Who needs a footpath?
A minority is walking more than 500 meters.
Anything else is done by motorcycle, taxi or car...

[dudopode]

So is she facing eviction ? 

She surely didn't have tables on the pavement ...

So is she kicked out of her restaurant ??

[mercman24]

i wonder how many of these vendors are tax paying citizens, i bet not a single one,

[hansnl]

2 hours ago, AsiaHand said:

Since the people of (LOS---LOIR) have no say in any matter of how the government runs their lives the police and government can and do implement  various stupid laws and restrictions with no fear of reprisals..Whit this idea in mind here you have some joker in an official  post with very little brains thinking that since he and his friends never use the sidewalk and street food vendors and he sees them as an eye sore drawing crowds  that are slowing down his car on the street then they should be removed .The government run the government like most Thai drivers drive their cars on the highway,They see where they are at and try to see their destination,but see nothing in between as they careen their cars down the highway without any regards of what could or will occur in the immediate. ,. Ah yes  its LOIR, Land Of Ignorance and Restrictions.

Oh well, of course in your own country it is completely different, your government does exactly what the people want and not what the big cats want, and all laws are well thought out and only implemented if and when the people say so.

Your government, parliament, police, civil servants & all are only working for the people..........

[johng]

i wonder how many of these vendors are tax paying citizens, i bet not a single one,

Everything single one pays VAT

[anon537687643]

That's utter nonsense.
To which Thai people have you talked?
The majority I know love street food and street markets.
Also they offer cheap prices and good value.
I'm just guessing but probably you just frequent with hi so thais.

You’re Wrong on everything ! No surprise on TV


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[overherebc]

17 hours ago, mok199 said:

Goggles from splashing grease,5555..mabey try ''less oil''...

No pain no gain ?????

[holy cow cm]

18 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

“Let’s call it what it is: elitism and corporate gentrification,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

 

 

18 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Across Asia, governments keen to modernise booming cities increasingly view street vendors as a hindrance, and as usurpers of public spaces meant for formal businesses and wealthy residents.

supports the above statement. 

 

18 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

“Shepherding them into ‘centres’ or eradicating them completely leaves a huge hole in the city’s ecosystem.”

 

“This hole will inevitably be filled by big corporations” like food companies and department stores, she added.

 

The crackdown on street vendors is part of a wider effort by Thailand’s military government, which came to power in a 2014 coup, to impose order in a city famous for its vibrant nightlife and cheap and varied street food.

So the will crack and crack until it is finally all down from their crack down. The destruction of the fun and charming Thailand .

 

[AsiaHand]

1 hour ago, hansnl said:

Oh well, of course in your own country it is completely different, your government does exactly what the people want and not what the big cats want, and all laws are well thought out and only implemented if and when the people say so.

Your government, parliament, police, civil servants & all are only working for the people..........

Hansel.I do not know where you are from but in countries with laws based on the Greek style of democracy the governments deems to make laws with the citizens in mind as those are the people keeping them in office.Yes many of the laws through out many countries seem to run a fowl of what most people want and many seem to be done with little thought.But in those countries it is the people that decide in the end whether to change the laws or not.(case in point the 18th and the 21 amendments in The US) here as I pointed out the people have ABSURDLY NO say in their government's running of their country. so the government can pass laws as it  suits them.

[holy cow cm]

So we have three choices to think of for them poor ole nothing vendors:

-Off with their heads

or

-Let them eat cake

or

-Let them eat cake and then off with their heads. 

 

The audacity of these Thai common street urchin folk and foreign travelers thinking that they know best and better than the elite and what I order for this country. Y'all just remember, Y'all don't have immunity, so Sterilization is the cure. Of course strangulation is the first step as so the S + S = the "SS". Please no praising putting your arm straight out and up for me as all my hard work is done for the love of the country, well some of the top tier that is, so y'all just better be quiet. Just watch the moving somewhere update every 6pm on tv, like it or not on every single Thai channel commandeered having no choice as they feel da iron fist squeezing their gonads.. Oh the power! On Fridays you have a special show at 8pm that is so long it will put you to sleep or make your stomach hurt. My stomach hurts, but it is from laughing at all the suppressed ants.

[johng]

20 minutes ago, AsiaHand said:

I pointed out the people have ABSURDLY NO say in their government's running of their country

is absurdly  a typo  ?

[Emster23]

" The military junta, however, has been keen to improve standards of living..."

For whom? (we already know...)

Put thousands out of work, force common person to pay more for food, lose major tourist draw.... not sharpest pencils in the box.

I live in Ramkhamhaeng half the time and frequent those vendors. It's good, inexpensive and far greater choice than any food court. And my Thai wife also loves it, along with carts down Soi 22.

Far greater and less useful are the lottery ticket sellers who make sidewalk near impassable with their tables etc when it is near drawing time.

I will be most happy when and if Thailand has a government that considers average Thai and stops trying to be another Singapore (in the dreams of the hiso imperious bloodsuckers).

[timendres]

4 hours ago, mercman24 said:

i wonder how many of these vendors are tax paying citizens, i bet not a single one,

Few would meet the level of income where taxes are owed. You need to earn 150,000 baht before you owe any tax. Then it is only 5% from 150,000 to 300,000. But, as mentioned previously, they do pay VAT on every baht of that income that they inevitably spend.

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

6 hours ago, mercman24 said:

i wonder how many of these vendors are tax paying citizens, i bet not a single one,

I bet almost all of them are paying to be in their spots and we all know who they are paying which is why they are left alone to do their business and block public space leaving the rest of us to walk on the streets, which are also crowded because the same people are being paid to let the rip0off taxi's park there to overcharge customers

[Cake Monster]

7 hours ago, CLW said:

Who needs a footpath?
A minority is walking more than 500 meters.
Anything else is done by motorcycle, taxi or car...

The Thais certainly dont need a footpath. Its very rare indeed to even see a Thai walk more than 10 Meters.

I believe that they are born with a motorcycle welded onto their A@$^$

[GTgrizzly]

5 hours ago, hansnl said:

Oh well, of course in your own country it is completely different, your government does exactly what the people want and not what the big cats want, and all laws are well thought out and only implemented if and when the people say so.

Your government, parliament, police, civil servants & all are only working for the people..........

You've gotta be joking 

Since when has any government worked for the people, they are ALL in it for what they can get out of it for themselves, they couldn't give a stuff what the people want

[overherebc]

I'm still trying to get my head around street food getting a Michelin Star.

[ChiangMaiLightning2143]

All street vendors should be shifted to vacant lots, car parks, the hundreds of empty ground floor space in BKK buildings and eventually proper Hawker centers like Singapore. Yes people might have to walk 20 meters to eat

Lunch/Dinners but Footpaths are for walking. Streets are for cars and bikes. They should NEVER be blocked except in the case of a nightly or weekly “walking street”. World famous Chang Mai Night Bazaar gets a fraction of the trade it once did most occurs in the open areas.

 

Tourists are no longer “amazed” by being hemmed in a narrow footpath blocked by vendor carts, and go elsewhere.

[hotchilli]

I'm ok with a vendor and a cart selling from the pavement, but then you get the extreme vendor who comes in and sets up tables and chairs and takes over the whole area.. they're the ones who need to be moved on!

Mobile vendors offer a good reliable service at affordable prices to locals & farangs alike.

Breakfast time or midday or evening tolerance is needed but in reality some vendors do take it too far and kill the opportunity to be tolerated!