Clean-up plan on Khao San road opposed

BANGKOK: -- Vendors fear they will lose business if a city plan to clean up Khao San road goes ahead.

They are protesting a city plan to end daytime trading on the footpath along the road from Friday.

The city intends to close Khao San to night traffic and will allow vendors now operating on the footpath to run their businesses only on the street and only at night.

Deputy city clerk Anan Siripassaraporn said the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration will allow street vendors to sell goods on the street from 5pm to midnight while Khao San is closed to traffic and turned into a special business district like Chinatown.

Despite protests, the city was determined to bring order to the street since vendors had long been breaking the law by trespassing on public land, he added.

Mr Anan said vendors would be barred from running their businesses on the footpath in forbidden zones on July 1.

Currently, vendors operate on Khao San road from 9am until about 11pm.

In response, many vendors on Khao San road have voiced objections, saying they would have less time to sell goods and lose most of the money made from selling souvenirs to foreign tourists during the daytime.

Yada Pornpenrampa, a leader of the protest and member of the Khao San street business operators' association, said she wondered where vendors who now operated in the street at night would move to make way for hawkers evicted from the footpath.

In another development, the city has invited street vendors operating outside permitted areas to show up at its youth centre in Din Daeng on July 1-3 to register for about 7,000 new selling stalls citywide.

--Bangkok Post 2005-06-30

Maybe vendors should open a makeshift market place somewhere next to the road. I don't know the area but I would some kind of place could be marked off that food seekers and tourist could easily find.

Clean-up plan on Khao San road opposed

lose most of the money made from selling souvenirs to foreign tourists during the daytime.

--Bangkok Post 2005-06-30

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

the locals too enjoy the Khao San trail.