Moscow News
www.mnweekly.ru
June 18, 2009
City declares war on kiosks
By Anna Arutunyan
Moscow officials have once again declared war on kiosks and street vendors, this time promising to slash the number of retail points by more than four times - from 16,000 to 3,000.
"There should not be 16,000 retail points, but 3,000 out of 16,000. They will be present in the capital, but they will have a more civilised appearance," Georgy Smoleyevsky, deputy director of Moscow's consumer market department, was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying at a City Duma committee on economic policy and entrepreneurship.
Smolensky believes that the problem is that street vendors have licenses to sell 500 types of products, and 300 of those are food products, which could pose potential food sanitation hazards.
"Kiosks should have a confirmed assortment of products which they can store," he said.
But that doesn't forbode an end to street vending in the capital, city officials say. The practice simply needs to be regulated better. Smoleyevsky said that some of Moscow's newer districts, where grocery stores remain sparse, will keep their kiosks. "The main thing is that Muscovites should be supplied," he said.
"Small retailers should exist in the city. There is no way to get rid of printed press, flowers, ice cream. But we certainly don't need bananas or beer. There is no problem with finding places to have a beer in Moscow."
Moscow authorities have been moving to rid the capital of "non-stationary" retail facilities for several years. The goal was to have only stands that sold newspapers, flowers, transportation tickets and fast food by 2011. In 2009, officials had planned to remove 1,500 retail stands - some 20 per cent of small retail in the city. But the financial crisis has put their plans on hold.
Officials in January said that the programme to remove kiosks from the city would be delayed to help small business get through tough economic conditions.