Disabled Chinese pieman forced to halt business after 34 years because he has no licence
A disabled man who has served green onion pies to thousands of Shanghai residents over the past 34 years, was forced to shut his shop on Monday because he had never obtained a business licence, mainland media reports.
Wu Gencheng, who is in his 60s and a hunchback, started his business frying the traditional savoury favourites for customers using a wok at a street market stall 34 years ago.
He opened his tiny side-street shop, “A Da” – meaning oldest brother – in the city’s busy Huangpu district in 2003, the news portal Thepaper.cn reported.
Large queues of customers had often formed outside as early as 5am to ensure they could buy Wu’s freshly made pies, the report said.
“We had spoken to him on numerous occasions and told him to stop running his business”, a local market supervisory official was quoted as saying.