The Ombudsman on Thursday took the authorities to task for shortcomings in their efforts to prevent shops, hawkers, and other businesses from causing a nuisance to the public by illegally cluttering up Hong Kong's streets with their wares.

Winnie Chiu said an investigation by her office has found that officials from different departments often struggle to agree on who should take action regarding a complaint, and even repeat offenders escape with minimal punishment.

She noted that officers from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) do carry out frequent inspections of obstruction blackspots such as the Flower Market in Mong Kok and Shun Ning Road and Yee Kuk Street in Sham Shui Po.

But a high number of complaints and a high number of inspections doesn't always translate into a high number of fines and prosecutions and therefore the problems persist, the Ombudsman said.

Even when offenders are punished, the fines frequently prove to have no deterrent effect and many people get caught over and over again. Taking someone to court for street obstruction also often leads to a fine even lower than the HK$1,500 fixed penalty, the Ombudsman said.

"The highest penalty imposed by means of summons was only HK$5,000, which
is the maximum penalty under the relevant legislation. In our view, the existing penalty is inadequate to deter serious obstruction cases such as large-scale occupation of pavements by goods and miscellaneous articles."

The Ombudsman noted that the police and FEHD have been conducting joint operations in various districts in recent years, and said this provides a bigger deterrent effect as goods in the streets can be confiscated. She said the authorities should consider giving the FEHD the power to take action like this on its own.

"The FEHD should be given the legislative power to also detain and seize and confiscate obstructive goods... so it doesn't have to depend on the police all the time in terms of such enforcement action," Chiu said.

The Ombudsman also called for the complaints system to be improved, noting that cases are passed between departments, and can be dropped and later taken up again by someone else, meaning the performance pledge of responding to issues in 30 days is frequently missed.