Khao San Road vendors openly defy the new pavement ban

PHOTOS: The Nation

Vendors on Khao San road, Bangkok’s popular back-packer magnet and tourist trap, are openly defying the BMA ban on sidewalk vendors and markets.

Officials of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) said they wanted to impose order in the area which for years has been occupied by vendors who ply their trade on both side of the roads, blocking the sidewalks and causing safety concerns. They launched a major clean-up of the street today but met strong resistance from many vendors after the BMA plan to limit their trading hours to 6pm-midnight, starting today.

Thai PBS reports that Bangkok’s deputy governor Sakonthee Patthiyakul, who has been taking most of the heat in the tense stand-off between City Hall and the vendors, says “…vending on the street pavements is illegal even though the vendors have been there for many years.”

He said under a new arrangement, vendors would be allowed to carry on with their trade on the road surface from 6 pm to midnight – not on the pavements almost throughout the day and night as it used to be.

Read the rest of the article from Thai PBS HERE.