We'll fight to the end, Kwun Tong traders say as eviction looms

The few remaining traders on a soon-to-be-redeveloped Kwun Tong street are vowing to fight eviction.

Shopkeepers in Yan Shue Lane say they will "fight to the end like the villagers of Choi Yuen Tsuen", the Pat Heung village razed to make way for the Hong Kong-Guangzhou express rail link that saw mass protests.

Eric Leung Kam-hung is the last person in the city selling racing pigeons at his Kok Chai Bird Store. He expects Food and Environmental Health Department officials to arrive on his doorstep at any time to shut him down.

Along with half a dozen neighbours, traders and pigeon fanciers, Leung said he would stand guard until the officers arrive.

"I won't leave … I have nothing left, so what is there to be afraid of?" he said. "Three decades of blood and sweat will have gone to waste if I leave."

Wearing red headbands, the group marched to the department's Kwun Tong office yesterday to hand in a petition demanding better relocation and compensation.

Leung and 29 other traders were supposed to leave on Monday to make way for an Urban Renewal Authority town centre project. Most have already accepted the HK$110,000 compensation and agreed to move.

Leung said he was given the money and promised a site in Mong Kok's Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. But he has been refused a new licence to sell pigeons because of avian flu concerns.

"I don't want money. All I want is a licence to sell my birds so I can maintain my livelihood," Leung said. He has given most of his pigeons away so they could not be culled.

Many businesses and hawkers had been squatting on the land since the 1960s and '70s, unaware it was government property. Hawker Chan Chi-yung said: "I built my business with my bare hands and have been here for 40 years. All of a sudden I'm a squatter. The government has shown us no respect." A URA spokesman said evictions would begin soon.