Restaurant fined for exorbitantly-priced giant salamander

NANNING -- A restaurant in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region has been fined 500,000 yuan ($77,000 dollars) for its outrageously-priced giant salamander.

The restaurant also had its business and service licenses revoked, according to Guilin government.

A tourist, identified as Wang, last week was left up in arms after she was charged a staggering 5,000 yuan for a giant salamander weighing 1.65 kg.

"I was taken to the restaurant by a taxi driver," she said. "The waiter recommended the giant salamander, but they did not specify the price."

"It was not until after the cook had killed the animal that they told me it would cost 3,200 yuan a kilo, and offered a discount if I didn't request an invoice," Wang said. "It's ridiculous! The highest price I have heard people paying for a giant salamander in Guilin was 1,400 yuan per kilo."

Wang informed the police, who helped her barter the price down to 1,500 yuan.

The restaurant, however, offered a very different story.

"Every dish is clearly labeled with a specific price," said a waiter, who declined to be named. "The salamander was not killed until she accepted the weight and price."

The restaurant manager told Xinhua that they bought the giant salamanders at a local vegetable market for around 700 yuan per kilo. He added that all prices were set within the restaurant's rights.

According to the Pricing Law, restaurants must not over-price their products. Another regulation also stipulates that the price of a certain commodity or service must not exceed the average price for the same area.

It transpires that the restaurant has form in this regard. Customers last year complained about its prices, so it changed its name, according to investigators.

Authorities in Guilin issued all resturants with a "warning letter," which requests that they avoid "damaging the interests of customers." Anyone found violating laws and regulations will be severely punished, according to the letter.

It is not the first time that pricey food in scenic areas have made headlines in China.

Last year, a restaurant and local officials in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao were given tough punishments after a diner ordered a prawn dish marked as 38 yuan on the menu. He was then given a bill for 1,520 yuan because the price was per prawn, a fact stated in small print on the menu.

Similar price scandals usually happen in scenic areas, and mostly happened to tourists from other localities, said Liu Simin, a tourism expert with China Society for Futures Studies.

"Customers are typically forced to accept the high prices due to the costs of safeguarding their legal rights," Liu said.

The frequent emergence of such scandals have highlighted loose market supervision in China, experts say.

A government official in Hangzhou, requesting anonymity, said government officials and law enforcement officers often pass the buck when dealing with disputes in order to save themselves the trouble.

"Similar market disputes usually involve several government bodies like the administrations for commodity prices and the industrial and commercial bureaus, making handling such disputes very complicated," he said.

Hangzhou's law expert Cheng Xuelin said the process of handling market disputes is usually quite long. Without media attention, the incidents usually go unnoticed.

While government bodies should increase supervision, credit systems being built across China should be further promoted, according to Wang Xukun, a government official on the rights and interests of consumers in the northeastern city of Harbin.

"Only with the introduction of a credit system will businesses truly abide by the law," Wang said.