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A woman and a company were each fined $2,500 at the Kowloon City Magistrates' Courts today (October 3) for contravening the Hotel and Guesthouse Accommodation Ordinance.
The courts heard that officers of the Office of the Licensing Authority (OLA), Home Affairs Department, inspected a licenced guesthouse on Kweilin Street, Sham Shui Po, in March this year. During the investigation, an OLA officer posed as a lodger and rented a room in an unlicenced premises in the same building on a daily basis. Consequently the female manager of the premises was charged with contravening section 5(1) of the Ordinance while the company, being the licence holder of the licenced guesthouse, was charged with section 21(3)(b) of the Ordinance for operating a guesthouse in a place other than the address indicated on the licence.
A department spokesman stressed that it is a criminal offence to operate or manage an unlicensed guesthouse. Any person who is convicted of operating or managing an unlicensed guesthouse is liable to imprisonment. The maximum penalty upon conviction is a $200,000 fine and imprisonment for two years.
He appealed to the public to report suspected illegal guesthouses to the OLA through the OLA hotline (2881 7498), by email (hadlaenq@had.gov.hk) or fax (fax number: 2504 5805) using the report form downloaded from the website (www.hadla.gov.hk).
Ends/Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Issued at HKT 17:30
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