Bureau frowns at wedding club in Gucun Park
Print Edition
THE city’s greenery authority has taken the operator of Gucun Park to task after it rented out a part of the park to a wedding club, which barred visitors inside its premises.
The Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau said there were six business ventures inside the park till recently but all of them had shut down.
The wedding club was the only one that survived.
A local resident surnamed Wu complained that he was stopped by a security guard in front of the wedding club when he wanted to have a look inside.
He was only allowed in after his granddaughter told them she wanted to have a look inside for her wedding, the Shanghai Morning Post reported.
“The area is part of the park. Why are common visitors not allowed inside?” Wu told the paper.
Jane Liu, another resident in Baoshan District, said she found also the area was closed to visitors.
“I think all areas in the park should be open to visitors if they are not offices or being renovated as we buy tickets,” she told Shanghai Daily.
The park charges 20 yuan (US$3) as admission fee.
“It looks beautiful from outside. It is a pity that it does not allow visitors inside,” she said.
On the park’s official website, the area is described as a garden with three manors featuring Mediterranean, Asian and British styles. It says it is a good place for visitors to take pictures and rest.
But the wedding club, called “Yingguan Manor,” claims it has a 20,000 square meter lawn and a banquet hall, and has been open for about six years. It offers wedding banquets priced from 3,888 yuan.
A staff member of the park’s management office, surnamed Wang, told the paper that the space was rented out to the wedding club to cover the high maintenance costs of the park.
“The subsidy from district government is not enough. We have to rent out some facilities at the park to make a profit as an enterprise,” Wang said.
She claimed no approval was required to rent out spaces.
High-end restaurants, tea houses and clubs should be banned at public parks as they only serve a small group of people, according to a guideline issued in 2013 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
According to a guideline issued by the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, high-end private clubs in public parks have “damaged the public interest, fanned corruption and triggered discontent in society,” Xinhua news agency reported earlier.
Gucun Park has now started to allow visitors into the club since yesterday afternoon. It posted a notice yesterday saying all park visitors can now tour the area.
The Shanghai Greenery and Public Sanitation Bureau told Shanghai Daily that it has also asked the club to make meals affordable to all and meet the demands of the residents and avoid turning the place into a high-end wedding venue.
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