Chow Kit night market traders distressed

The night market in this place, Pusat Penjaja Jalan Haji Taib, is popularly known as Pasar Malam Chow Kit and it opens at around 4 PM. The market is surrounded by permanent shops that open for business from early morning until eight in the evening. A few of these shop owners, mostly whom are in wholesale business, complain that during the market time they lose walk-in customers because there is no place for parking.

The hours for the street stalls business is from 6pm to 12 midnight.

However, the stall workers are already seen pushing their carts as early as 4pm. They claim to need at least two hours to set up their stalls before they can do their business.

According to Ang Khoon Lok, the Chairman of the Hawkers Association at Tiong Nam, there are currently 384 hawkers in this area. About less than 45% of these are members of the association. The association only has Malaysians as members. No foreigners are allowed to join.

Before moving to this place in 1997, many of the stall operators were doing business nearby, in front of the Emporium on the main road of Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman.

When the Monorail Stations was build, the local authority i.e. the Kuala Lumpur City Hall or DBKL (Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur) provided them with this alternative location.

DBKL had promised them with a developed and beautified locality with arches and canopy. 

Until today, many promises have been made by the officers in this local authority and every new Federal Territory Minister.

Video by R. Vijay Kumar, Citizen Journalist.