Sweeping vendors off Bangkok streets

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Sweeping vendors off Bangkok streets

Tan Hui Yee Thailand Correspondent In Bangkok

 

City officials say pavements are for public use but move may cost capital its vibrancy

 

BANGKOK: -- The food carts are disappearing. So are the street-corner cobblers, sidewalk tailors and other vendors that make treading Bangkok's pavements both an adventure and a chore.

 

City officials, buttressed by a military government vowing to restore order in Thai society, have cleared out some of Bangkok's most famous nodes of street life.

 

They plan to expand these efforts in the coming months, raising fears that the vibrancy would be sucked out of the capital of some 10 million people.

 

Full story: http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/sweeping-vendors-off-bangkok-streets

 

-- THE STRAITS TIMES 2017-01-24

[fruitman]

OMG, now many farang will have to move out of thailand. They were addicted to the streetfood. Guess it will be even more busy now at the Tesco foodcourt.

[Maverell]

Soi On Nut (on the Big C side) is now clear from Big C to Sukhumvit Road - all the vendors seem to have been placed in a covered area adjacent to Big C car park exit area. Seems much better to me, cleared the walkways AND protected the jobs of the vendors.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Maverell

[zorro1]

" be sucked out "

The real reason they came..

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

Good riddance!!!

The sidewalks are for pedestrians, not vendors. The only people that benefit from that are the police.

Relocate the vendors somewhere else. 

IMO this is not what Bkk is about. Much better things to see and do here. If you need to buy some cheap quality overpriced stuff, go do it in a tourist trap that most tourists will likely visit during their vacation anyway.

The sidewalks are dangerous enough just due to their poor condition. Walking on the street is just suicidal though.

[Jimbo2014]

37 minutes ago, ALLSEEINGEYE said:

Good riddance!!!

The sidewalks are for pedestrians, not vendors. The only people that benefit from that are the police.

Relocate the vendors somewhere else. 

IMO this is not what Bkk is about. Much better things to see and do here. If you need to buy some cheap quality overpriced stuff, go do it in a tourist trap that most tourists will likely visit during their vacation anyway.

The sidewalks are dangerous enough just due to their poor condition. Walking on the street is just suicidal though.

 

Fully agree - these stalls may have worked when Bkk was less populated or in the villages but now they are just a disgusting mess and make walking the streets almost impossible.  The food and fat and Styrofoam boxes litter and stink up the pavements.  Good riddance.  They should be in properly sanctioned areas with reasonable hygiene standards. 

[Jonmarleesco]

Well, if nothing else, it'll clear the way for the motorcycles. That said, perhaps the BMA could clear parked bikes off the pavement. After all, by public use, I assume they do mean the walking public, not the riding variant?

 

After that, perhaps the RTP will do its job, for a change?

[Emster23]

"... the vibrancy would be sucked out of the capital of some 10 million people." and an honest living for the street vendors. I have a place in Ramkhamhaeng and like the food vendors that sell there. Walking is not a problem, they keep it clean, and the food is good. Maybe the powerful want this place to look like Singapore. I stopped going there in 85. Might as well be in Utah.

[jobwolf]

To be very honest, I will not miss them a little bit. there are still enough places to go and eat without the smell and congestion on the sidewalks. Well done.

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, ALLSEEINGEYE said:

Good riddance!!!

The sidewalks are for pedestrians, not vendors. The only people that benefit from that are the police.

Relocate the vendors somewhere else. 

IMO this is not what Bkk is about. Much better things to see and do here. If you need to buy some cheap quality overpriced stuff, go do it in a tourist trap that most tourists will likely visit during their vacation anyway.

The sidewalks are dangerous enough just due to their poor condition. Walking on the street is just suicidal though.

So you are an expert and know that the only people who benefited are the police? You took into account what the people want, just like the BMA? 

 

There is one reason why they want to 'clear' things up, so the rich can exploit it to the detriment of the poor. 

[gdgbb]

1 hour ago, PremiumLane said:

There is one reason why they want to 'clear' things up, so the rich can exploit it to the detriment of the poor. 

What do you mean?  Who wants to clear things up and what are "the rich" going to exploit that will be detrimental to "the poor"?

[gdgbb]

1 hour ago, PremiumLane said:

So you are an expert and know that the only people who benefited are the police? You took into account what the people want, just like the BMA?

It's irrelevant "what the people want" if what they want are illegal traders blocking public pavements.  Anyone who wants that doesn't deserve to have their opinion heard.

[onthesoi]

1 hour ago, PremiumLane said:

So you are an expert and know that the only people who benefited are the police? You took into account what the people want, just like the BMA?

The Thai government set up stalls on the streets in question so that passers-by could register their vote to keep or remove the vendors with a running total of votes being displayed on whiteboards ....it was a landslide, only a tiny percentage(probably vendor votes) wanted the vendors, the people( who the pavements/side walks are there for ) don't want the vendors obstructing their path.

[amjamj]

Welcome to Cambodia !

[fruitman]

Lately they are refurbishing many big markets in the subs...they get new high roofs, parkingassistants and it's fun there as long as we can just walk around.

 

Loads of food of course and even real van-restaurants like we have in the west. 

 

Even chinatown is clean of streetvendors, what a relieve..now we can walk around finally.

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Not so much on the odd-numbered sois side of lower Sukhumvit in BKK.

 

That was one of the first areas the BKK admin cracked down on in terms of forbidding sidewalk vendors. But in the past couple months, I've noticed the sidewalk vendors slowly creeping back to using the public sidewalks in certain areas, including between say sois 15 and 19.

 

[bkkcanuck8]

1 hour ago, fruitman said:

Lately they are refurbishing many big markets in the subs...they get new high roofs, parkingassistants and it's fun there as long as we can just walk around.

 

Loads of food of course and even real van-restaurants like we have in the west. 

 

Even chinatown is clean of streetvendors, what a relieve..now we can walk around finally.

 

 

Yes, a van takes up much less room than a street food vendor 

 

Back in Toronto before I left, they were actually trying to pull back the regulations and allow for some diversity as per street food that left really only street meat on a bun as an option.  

 

My soi might not have as much diversity as I would like but at least it has my made to order vendor and the fried (medicinal) chicken and papaya salad vendor.  

 

[fruitman]

7 minutes ago, bkkcanuck8 said:

Yes, a van takes up much less room than a street food vendor 

 

a van doesn't cause accidents or congestion like a pushcart does. They can also have watertanks which keeps the pavement clean and tidy.

 

And the best thing is van's keep the owner inside, not like pushcarts where the vendor goes standing infront of it or even puts a chair there in the walkway.

 

Also soidogs can't piss against their stove/plates like on pushcarts and they can take their rubbish home in it so the rats also have no chance of a free meal.

 

My soi has great tree's and parks with lakes and fountains. My garden has many fruittree's and we have birds everywhere. We also have a restaurant at the pool and no streetvendors at all, perfect! As soon as i drive out of the moobaan the messy chaos starts with bad mannered selfish people everywhere on every corner.

[SiSePuede419]

Good god, now Farang are whinging about not being able to "walk the streets" of BKK....

 

But they forget about their expensive taxi rides, motorbikes and cars, because they are so out of shape, they can't walk anywhere in the city. ?

[connda]

It's akin to sweeping Thai culture off the streets.  It's one of the aspects of Thailand that many visitor come to enjoys - street markets.  Make the streets antiseptic and tourist will go elsewhere.  Anyway, instead to street vendors on the sidewalks, we'll just have parked cars and motorcycles now. 

[amjamj]

Hello,

 

Can someone show me what kind of food trucks are used in Bkk now ?

 

Are they just adapted pickups ? Or the real expensive food trucs as in the west ?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[hawker9000]

The vendors & stalls are a holdover from another era when they didn't constitute the ever worsening obstruction they do now.  Relocating them is the only sensible solution.  People don't ride horses & buggies anymore either.

(Well, OK - they do in Intercourse, PA....)

 

   

[oval]

As a walker, I am glad to see much of these stalls gone. However, I would only support removing vendors if they're given an opportunity to move their business elsewhere. The majority of vendors are just battlers struggling to make a living. 

[bkkcanuck8]

6 hours ago, hawker9000 said:

The vendors & stalls are a holdover from another era when they didn't constitute the ever worsening obstruction they do now.  Relocating them is the only sensible solution.  People don't ride horses & buggies anymore either.

(Well, OK - they do in Intercourse, PA....)

 

   

Had enough of well meaning bureaucrats who make regulations trying to control every last aspect of the food industry in order to create a safer product -- only to wipe out small vendors and create massive meat packing plants (etc.) that end up having to recall millions of products because these regulations only made bigger issues out of smaller ones.  Making regulations like a butcher cannot house both raw meat and artisan style salamis etc. in the same building because of potential contamination....  creating an uneconomic situation for smaller providers and driving them out of business.... Sick of the bureaucrats that try to make sushi and sashimi safer by making regulations like you have to freeze all raw fish before it may be used (luckily that one was rolled back because.... you cannot really have frozen fish made into sushi/sashimi..... it destroys it).    

[bkkcanuck8]

47 minutes ago, oval said:

As a walker, I am glad to see much of these stalls gone. However, I would only support removing vendors if they're given an opportunity to move their business elsewhere. The majority of vendors are just battlers struggling to make a living. 

As a walker I have had no problem negotiating my way down Sukhumvit.....   it never stopped me.  I get more annoyed with human obstacles these days not walking in a straight line, not looking where they go while they try to text and walk at the same time....

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

19 hours ago, PremiumLane said:

So you are an expert and know that the only people who benefited are the police? You took into account what the people want, just like the BMA? 

 

There is one reason why they want to 'clear' things up, so the rich can exploit it to the detriment of the poor. 

So tell me expert, if they clear the sidewalks of the vendors then how will they be exploited by the rich? They will be clear!!

 

I might not be an expert but you would have to be very new to Thailand or blind in both eyes and quite ignorant not to know how the street vendors, beggars and taxi's etc etc get their spots on the streets. 

 

I have been living here 14 years and know many vendors that have had, and still have their shops on the streets. Try talking to them and maybe you will understand and can be an expert too.

 

The police control all of it !!!

[bkkcanuck8]

3 minutes ago, ALLSEEINGEYE said:

So tell me expert, if they clear the sidewalks of the vendors then how will they be exploited by the rich? They will be clear!!

 

I might not be an expert but you would have to be very new to Thailand or blind in both eyes and quite ignorant not to know how the street vendors, beggars and taxi's etc etc get their spots on the streets. 

 

I have been living here 14 years and know many vendors that have had, and still have their shops on the streets. Try talking to them and maybe you will understand and can be an expert too.

 

The police control all of it !!!

What should be done is for the city to implement a licensing system (owner operated) where they issue food cart permits which would take the power away from the police in the way of extorting "renting" space.    They could also buy back plots of land in many different centrally located areas (not so far away that no one makes their way there) and turn it into hawker centers similar to Singapore.  The combination of the two would bring some order, without destroying the street food culture.  

[leftorright]

It should indeed be possible to find and maintain a reasonable compromise between totally clogged pavements and a merciless clean sweep. Street vendors, apart from the life they bring to streets, play a crucial role in the city’s economy: without them Bangkok would become a lot less affordable for the legions of people on less than 15,000 baht per month salaries, many of which live in simple rooms/studios without cooking facilities. It deserves a thought: what would be the consequences for the city if 10-15k per month salaries no longer suffice to make ends meet here?

[bkkcanuck8]

2 minutes ago, leftorright said:

It should indeed be possible to find and maintain a reasonable compromise between totally clogged pavements and a merciless clean sweep. Street vendors, apart from the life they bring to streets, play a crucial role in the city’s economy: without them Bangkok would become a lot less affordable for the legions of people on less than 15,000 baht per month salaries, many of which live in simple rooms/studios without cooking facilities. It deserves a thought: what would be the consequences for the city if 10-15k per month salaries no longer suffice to make ends meet here?

The middle class will be complaining that their standard of living is dropping as they can no longer take for granted being able to hire cheap labour for things in the west we would not be able to afford because the cost of labour goes up... minimum wage goes up.... and the cost of things like maid service goes up.  The office workers on their way into the bank will no longer be able to pickup cheap eats on the way in to work, or at lunch and will have to walk farther (it will be a complaint unto itself) or find food courts that end up charging much more as the competition gets wiped out and the food court rents go up.  

[MrJohnson]

16 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Not so much on the odd-numbered sois side of lower Sukhumvit in BKK.

 

That was one of the first areas the BKK admin cracked down on in terms of forbidding sidewalk vendors. But in the past couple months, I've noticed the sidewalk vendors slowly creeping back to using the public sidewalks in certain areas, including between say sois 15 and 19.

 

True. I see it there and also around Silom. Of course if you are selling royal memorabilia then nobody is about to shoo you away. Now  that has extended to clothing (black of course) and now any clothes and food and on it goes. If the BMA guy is not actually sittiing there (usually playing on his mobile) the vendors creep back in . A bit like rats. And on it goes. As with so many things here -no enforcement of laws and regulations. For a few months now Silom has been so easy to get along. It has been much cleaner also. there are  still plenty of places to eat and shop on the side streets.