20080709/多伦多唐人街改善形象从灭鼠开始

Chinatown takes steps to clean up its image
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | 9:25 AM ET CBC News

Merchants and business owners in Toronto’s Chinatown say their area has an image problem and they’re going to do their best to correct it — starting with the rats.

For years, the fruit stands, grocery stores and restaurants that give the shops on and around Spadina Avenue such character have heard complaints about dirty streets, rotting garbage and bad smells.

Business owners have done their best to eliminate the problems. Every night, the garbage is put into bins and bags with the cardboard boxes neatly folded and left out for pickup. Every night, many of the merchants hose down the sidewalks.

But Stephen Chan, the chair of the Chinatown Business Improvement Area, says all the restaurants and food stores on Spadina mean lots of food on the street.

Chan said there’s no getting around it — where there’s food, there are rats.

Chan said the problem isn’t any worse in Chinatown than anywhere else in Toronto, but unfortunately people seem to think it is.

“Chinatown is actually not that dirty. It’s a high-traffic area. I feel we’re being identified as not clean in this area,” said Chan.

Chinatown is also one of the city’s most important tourist districts, so the BIA has hired a pest control company to install rat traps in Chinatown’s back alleys.

Traps aren’t enough: restaurant owner
“So it’s just one of things we feel that in this area we should address. And maybe hopefully it’ll strike down some of this stigma,” said Chan.

At the Dumpling House Restaurant, owner Dali Sun supports the idea. But he said using traps alone isn’t enough.

Sun said garbage pickup only happens twice a week, not enough for the hundreds of trash bags that are piled up along Spadina.

“Every single restaurant, including our restaurant, have to clean up our front area. It’s really dirty in this area.”

He said what Chinatown really needs is more trash cans and more garbage collection.

“If the rats cannot find food on the street, they’ll go somewhere else,” he said.

Sun said he hopes Chinatown will be cleaned up soon. He said people aren’t eating and shopping there as much anymore because of its reputation.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/07/08/spadina-rats.html#socialcomments