A renewed pre-Olympics crackdown has been launched in Beijing on billposters and people who hand out advertising fliers.

The city's environment authorities will bolster its efforts to wipe out illegal advertising especially in downtown areas, tourist sites and places around Olympics venues.

"We want a cleaner city for a better Games," the Beijing Times quoted officials from the Beijing 2008 Environment Headquarter Office as saying yesterday.

The office warned anyone caught posting or handing out small ad fliers would face serious penalties.

A girl waves to an Olympic Games mascot during an exhibition in London on Wednesday. The mascot is on the third leg of a world tour that has so far taken it to the United States and Finland. Xinhua
 

Under the existing rule, offenders could get two years community service.

In addition, reports said the office had named 124 "small ad-free" neighbourhoods throughout Beijing.

Special "sanitation teams" will patrol known spots, including bus stations, to quickly remove any illegal ads.

Small ads, or "adlets", have spread throughout Beijing at a rampant rate as a means of cost-effective advertising.

They are often found along roads, in subways and crossovers. People who are hired to paste up or hand out ads to passers-by in streets, have been know to contribute to Beijing's worsening traffic snarl.

Beijing resident Huang Jian said he once found seven small ads on his apartment door, and another two on his bicycle at the door.

"They advertise almost everything, such as kitchenware, fake certificates and cleaning services," he said.

"It's really annoying, and the government should do something."

In a bid to combat the illegal advertising ventures, the Beijing government started a campaign last year instructing telecommunication companies to spam the numbers published on the ads with recorded voice calls several times a minute, to make them essentially useless.

Local media also reported yesterday that the city would ban begging in the downtown area and put a clamp on unlicensed taxi cabs and illegal vendors.

Unlicensed travel agencies offering one-day city tours are also banned.

(China Daily March 2, 2007)