While the rest of Orchard Road is experiencing a slump, over at Lucky Plaza, business seems to be flourishing — that is, for the non-licensed hawkers on the streets outside the mall. Apparently, there’s been an illegal flea market setting up shop in the vicinity of the building, with mainly female sellers hawking clothes and shoes straight out of their giant bags.
According to retailers in the mall, whose businesses have been affected, the trend started from as early as last July and has grown to about ten “stalls” currently. Although the authorities have taken action against some of the illegal sellers, the rest keep coming back to undercut the prices of legitimate shops who pay anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000 per month in rental fees, reported The Straits Times.
Lucky Plaza, known as a popular hangout for Filipino domestic workers on Sundays, is filled with stores selling apparel, accessories, cosmetics, phones, and dried foods — and many of these retailers claim their sales revenues have dipped about 20 percent to 50 percent over the past four to six months.
This, they say, is because of the illegal hawkers, who peddle their wares in places like the back of Tong Building and outside Richmond Park condominium.
One retailer told ST that the illegal sellers seem to be growing bolder, offering brand new products and even services like haircuts and manicures. About 15 business owners, who run about 20 to 30 shops in between them, are planning to petition for harsher enforcement action against the makeshift hawkers.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) confirmed that it had received 10 reports of unregulated street hawking activity outside the mall since the beginning of the year.
“Checks have been carried out and enforcement actions were taken against five foreigners who were illegally hawking clothes and apparel,” an NEA spokesman said.
Anyone caught illegally hawking goods can have their items seized and be slapped with a fine of $300, $400, and $500 for the first, second and third offences respectively. Anything beyond that will end with prosecution in court, and offenders definitely won’t be able to find lawyers hawking their services in makeshift booths behind malls.
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