Street food vendors have expressed mixed feelings about the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's (BMA) plan to relocate them to new hawker centres in the capital to better manage them.
The Bangkok Post recently spoke to some vendors to get their perspective on the matter after Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt earlier this month unveiled the BMA's plan.
Mr Chadchart recently inspected pavements outside Phran Nok Market, one of 31 locations the BMA is looking to turn into a hawker centre.
During his visit, he said the city needs to set aside areas for street vendors to provide residents with affordable meals.
He said residents support the creation of hawker centres as they would benefit both sellers and customers.
A 36-year-old grilled pork vendor who went by Paweena told the Bangkok Post she has been selling her products for years and disagrees with Mr Chadchart's decision.
She is worried she will lose her regular customers at nearby offices.
Most are blue-collar workers who like buying her products during afternoon breaks and after work, she said.
"The authorities can only force the street vendors to move to arranged areas but they can't do that to the regular customers," she said.
"There's no guarantee that customers shopping around in the designated area will enjoy my pork the way my regular customers do," she said.
The same goes for Mhoo, a 59-year-old pad thai seller.
Apart from facing the same issue surrounding regular customers, Ms Mhoo is afraid rent at a new place will be unaffordable compared with the one she currently occupies, despite Mr Chadchart's promise that rent will be affordable in a new place.
"Office workers [regular customers] won't go to the new places set up for street vendors as we do not know how far away the centres will be from worksites," she said.
"I also have no idea how cheap [rent] will be. All I know is the current rent is the cheapest I can find in this neighbourhood," she said.
Meanwhile, two lottery ticket and pancake vendors named Wan and Sommai, in their mid-40s, said they would not willingly comply with the authorities as they live in the same area where they hawk their wares now. Moving would not be convenient for them.
However, despite their disagreement on relocation, some vendors offered alternative solutions to Mr Chadchart so officials can better manage hawkers.
Ms Mhoo said instead of moving old street vendors away from their areas, the Bangkok governor should put new street vendors there, as they do not yet have regular customers, and the centres could serve them better.
The area she currently occupies is teeming with street vendors who have been there for a long time, she said.
The authorities could instead help rearrange spaces for pedestrians and hawkers, she said.
