Two "The Claw" shops - measuring 400 square feet each in Sino Centre in Mong Kok - were found by Food and Environmental Hygiene Department officers to be open as usual in January 2020, when authorities had ordered entertainment venues to close amid an effort to control Covid outbreaks.

But then Kowloon City magistrate June Cheung Tin-ngan subsequently ruled that claw crane shops are not covered by the closure order because they do not need to acquire a entertainment venue license.

The Department of Justice had filed an appeal to the High Court but judge Anna Lai Yuen-kee yesterday ruled in favor of the shops and upheld the acquittal.

Lai agreed with Cheung's interpretation that claw crane machines do not fit the definition of entertainment under the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance.

The ordinance defines entertainment as a stage or theatrical performance, a cinematograph display, a circus, a lecture or story-telling, an exhibition, a sporting contest, a bazaar, an amusement ride or a dance party.

Cheung had said some of those entertainment activities attract large crowds like claw cranes shops do, but she believed the latter to have a "vastly different nature," and that the court should not easily bend the definitions found in laws.

While the DoJ also argued about whether claw cranes fall in the category of mechanical devices designed for amusement or amusement rides as defined in the Amusement Rides (Safety) Ordinance, Lai said they do not fit the references.

She said that the ordinance's definition of amusement rides had been derived from merry-go-arounds or ferris wheels decades ago, and there has not been any amendments to expand the definition.

Lai said since claw crane machines are not interpreted as entertainment in the ordinance, the shops are not public entertainment places.