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Give our newspaper kiosks new lease on life
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AFTER lunch, I went to a newspaper kiosk downstairs to check the latest edition of my favorite magazine and buy an ice cream bar. The August edition of the magazine was out of stock but the ice cream bar, made by a dairy plant in northeastern China, tasted the same months after it emerged in Shanghai this summer.
A freezer has been installed at the kiosk. I was told that the dairy plant signed a contract with some kiosk operators to jointly run the ice cream business — a little bit like cosmetics counters at pharmacies.
A kiosk at a popular downtown location may provide passers-by with both smoothies and convenient reading experiences. What a marvelous creation!
As a matter of fact, many newspaper kiosks in the city have expanded their product lines. Pedestrians’ reading needs have been shifting online, and the kiosks are selling fewer newspapers and magazines. To make up for it, they also sell mobile phone SIM cards, drinks and toys, and they can function as an advertising stand.
Why not? The kiosks tend to occupy prime locations, usually next to busy intersections.
However, many of the additional services right now are spontaneously launched by the operators and some small businesses, and some are even unlicensed. Our urban planners may grant the kiosks more meaningful functions and manage them properly.
That can be a win-win strategy rather than a rough decision to clamp down on the unlicensed operations or even demolish the kiosks like what a Beijing district authority did recently.
Beijing’s Chaoyang District ordered the removal of 72 newspaper kiosks under its jurisdiction partly because “they block the way.” The kiosks had been there for more than a decade. Why were they not demolished until recently?
Some of the kiosk operators said they never received any formal notice but were told about the decision by urban management officers hours before the action. Many kiosks were demolished overnight.
District authorities later explained that it was part of a well publicized face-lift. Officials said they had notified the kiosk operator one by one as well as the local company in charge of the circulation of newspapers and magazines. Officials also denied that they had removed the kiosks by force.
The official explanation sounds unpersuasive. Did the Chaoyang government acquire public permission? No report or proof is available yet.
Even if the district government had notified the local circulation company as well as the individual kiosk operators, such notification is not necessarily sufficient to justify a removal.
At any rate, a public hearing should have been held before any decision to remove news kiosks was made — after all, news kiosks are part of our daily life, and we have the right to decide their fate.
There are much better options to make Beijing more beautiful. For example, why not upgrade the 72 kiosks, grant them more services or even install high-tech equipment to turn them into smart kiosks to better serve the people and become highlights in visitors’ eyes?
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