Fed-up shop owners move to keep porn sellers out for good
Legitimate merchants and owners in a building that recently housed one of the city's most notorious pornography and pirate disc markets are banding together to drive out the gangsters for good.
They are hoping to take advantage of a lull in the illegal activity after a series of police crackdowns at the Ho King Commercial Centre in Mongkok to relaunch the building and shed its bad reputation. They will set up an owners' corporation tomorrow to pool efforts.
At the height of their activities, triads are believed to have been netting as much a $1.7 million a day at the building. The first floor of the building in Fa Yuen Street, where pornography and pirated discs were sold openly, drew locals and foreign tourists.
When the crackdown began, the gangsters changed tactics and switched to temporary outlets in the office block above the shopping centre, moving frequently and employing touts in the street to tell customers of the latest location.
But even those spots have been raided by police in the past weeks.
'You can't find them anywhere in the building now,' one of the officers involved told the South China Morning Post.
The manager of a company that has bought the second, third and fourth floors of the arcade said setting up an owners' corporation would allow them to set their own rules to keep out the undesirables and establish tighter management.
Chung Kam-sik added that even if they could not secure the vote of the owners who have been renting their units to the triads, he was confident of getting enough votes from others to set up the corporation.
But alleged threats to those behind the drive to set up the committee have cast a shadow over their efforts.
They are close-lipped on the issue, but police are understood to have sent officers to sit in on a recent meeting between the management company and owners.
Police say the porn and pirate disc business has also virtually ceased at the other two black spots in the district - the Sino Centre in Nathan Road and Sim City a few blocks away - following police raids.
