Jing’an Villa inspections start

Local district officials began checks on small businesses operating illegally inside Jing'an Villa in Shanghai Tuesday, a day after setting up an office at the old residential compound and about a year after recent commercialization of the area has raised hot debate within the community.

Tucked inside the 26,000-square-meter shikumen-style compound occupied briefly by the British in the 1930s, the office neighbors some 949 homes housing about 2,000 families. The area's property itself, however, belongs to Jing'an Real Estate Company.

Yet due to the residential nature of the site, owners who run small shops and cafés inside the villa are without business licenses since they are not approved for the area.

The new office inside the villa was empty after noon Tuesday, but several neighborhood guards said that officers from the district's industry and commerce bureau were earlier seen inspecting the area's shops and cafés. The Jing'an district authorities in charge Tuesday, however, refused to comment on the situation.

No response has been made either to a proposal by a local member of the city's advisory body earlier this year, which suggested turning the area into a cultural zone to help solve the problem of unlicensed businesses.

Still, a majority of the villa's some 80 shops and cafés were still open for business Tuesday. But, owners worried about an uphill battle, saying that they have already had to play hide-and-seek with officials.

The latest government notice posted inside the villa early this month said that homeowners caught renting space out to shop owners for commercial purposes risk a fine of up to 50,000 yuan ($7,925).

A 51-year-old local resident, surnamed Liu, whose family has lived in a 40-square-meter home inside the villa since she was born, was Tuesday pleased to see authorities finally taking steps to crack down on the unlicensed shops.

"With all these shops and cafés, the area doesn't even look the way it's supposed to anymore," she told the Global Times Tuesday. "The neighborhood is also much nosier and more unsafe compared to before."

Liu and her neighbors have reported on the shops' illegal operations since last year.

"But nothing ever happened," she said. "The shops would close when officials came for inspections and then reopen after they left."

Disappointed and confused, Irish tourist Geoff Dolan stood in front of a closed café inside the villa Tuesday.

"It's important that the city have a little area like this, and foreigners like these interesting places," he told the Global Times Tuesday. "Without them, the city will be a boring place to visit."

Next to the bureau's newly opened office, the owner of a tiny jade shop also chimed in Tuesday, saying that if his shop and others were forced to close, it would be "such a pity, especially for future generations of visitors, who want to experience Shanghai culture."

"The only similar places in the city are Xintiandi or Tianzifang," the man, who asked not to be named, told the Global Times Tuesday. "But, they're saturated by commercial development - they don't have a real sense of local culture from the people like this place does."