A kitchen barge connected to Hong Kong’s famed Jumbo Floating Restaurant capsized on Wednesday morning – barely two days after the eatery’s operator announced it was set to leave the city because of a lack of funds for maintenance.
The incident involving the 30-metre barge coincided with calls from lawmakers for the government to come up with survival plans for the restaurant, including to exempt it from paying relevant licence fees.
Police said they received a call from a security guard at 11.52pm that the barge attached to the 46-year-old restaurant in Aberdeen was sinking.
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Police and firefighters inspected the vessel, which had tilted by almost 90 degrees, and found no one was injured or missing. No evacuation was needed.
“Marine police and firemen came to the boat to check what had gone wrong. The investigation is still going on,” a spokeswoman for parent company Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises said on Wednesday morning.
The spokeswoman later confirmed the barge had suddenly capsized in the early hours of Wednesday.
“The kitchen barge has undergone regular maintenance and passed the Marine Department’s annual inspection a few weeks ago [mid-April]. The group will cooperate with the authorities in the investigation into the incident,” she said.
Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises announced on Monday that because funds for maintenance to meet government requirements had dried up, it would move the facility out of Hong Kong for repairs and storage after its licence expired in June, while waiting for a new operator to take over.
Hong Kong leader rejects calls to aid struggling Jumbo Floating Restaurant
To meet licensing and other requirements, the company said, it had to spend millions annually on inspections, repairs and maintenance, which was “a heavy financial burden” under the current economic environment.
Ocean Park, which originally had plans to take over the facility as proposed in the 2020 policy address, told the company it had failed to identify a suitable third party to operate it.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Tuesday said the government would not pump money into the attraction, adding that the authorities could do nothing if both parties had failed to come to an agreement.
Tourism sector lawmaker Perry Yiu Pak-leung said the floating restaurant had a historical and cultural significance and was part of the collective memory of Hong Kong people, hoping the government would allow time for operators to find a “white knight”.
“It is not feasible for the government to use public money to fund the business operation of the restaurant. But from the perspective of conservation and shaping the tourist attraction, is there any room for the government to take part?” he said on a radio show on Wednesday.
“The law requires the licence to be renewed every three years so the safety of the boat is guaranteed. The government should consider whether there is room to exempt the procedures and licence fees.”
New People’s Party lawmaker Judy Chan Ka-pui also called for an exemption on licence fees, adding that other than providing funds, the government could offer policy support.
“The government seems to be treating the facility as just a barge but it actually carries a lot of cultural and tourism values,” she told the same programme.
Chan said the next government would set up a new Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau which could explore the revitalisation of the restaurant and promote the city’s fishing culture. She also suggested the government collaborate with the Hong Kong Jockey Club to revitalise the restaurant, as it did for Tai Kwun, the former Central Police Station.
Additional reporting by Cannix Yau and Christy Leung
More from South China Morning Post:
- Hong Kong’s iconic Jumbo Kingdom floating restaurants to close ‘until further notice’
- How deadly fire at Hong Kong’s Jumbo floating restaurant killed 34 in 1971, before it even opened
- Hong Kong’s iconic Jumbo Floating Restaurant to be given a facelift
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