Every time Chinese New Year rolls around, housewife Lim Gek Poh makes it a point to take her husband and two children to the same fortune-teller in Waterloo Street.

"Just before New Year is the best time for us to 'change our luck' and find out what we should avoid during the coming year," said Lim, 49, in Mandarin.

She is one of hundreds of Chinese Singaporeans who make the annual pilgrimage to over a dozen fortune-tellers plying their trade along Waterloo Street in the Bugis area.

These elderly Chinese men set up their makeshift booths with nothing more than a stool and a battered suitcase of fortune-telling paraphernalia.

Despite the festive cheer these fortune-tellers add to the area, a small group of shop owners and members of the public are seeing red over what they say is overcrowding.

According to nearby stall owners, the human traffic generated by these fortune-tellers has doubled over the past two years.

That is partly because the number of fortune-tellers itself has gone up.

When The Straits Times went to Waterloo Street on the last Friday before Chinese New Year, the 30m walkway near Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple was so crowded with people buying items from pushcarts, and stopping to stare at six or seven fortune-tellers there, human traffic was almost at a standstill.

"In recent years, fortune-tellers from Chinatown have come here to set up shop because they heard business is better. It is annoying when the crowds block my shop front or when they linger around," said one clothes shop owner, who operates near the temple.

Said engineer Yeo Yikai, 31, who was in Waterloo Street to buy Chinese New Year decorations: "I find it very difficult to walk through this stretch. It's so crowded and I keep bumping into people, it really turns me off shopping here."

Fortune-tellers The Straits Times spoke to confirmed that business has been booming in the past two years, with more tourists and young Singaporeans taking an interest.

They offer a variety of fortune-telling techniques, including face and palm reading and Eight Characters reading based on the strokes of one's name and time of birth. There are also more unconventional methods like tarot card readings, as well as using parakeets to pick lucky numbers.

Fortune-tellers like 85-year-old 'Master Wong' maintained, however, that they had not heard any complaints about their presence.

Said fortune-teller Yong Kam Fatt, 75, who moved to the location from Chinatown's Temple Street: "If the shops are unhappy, I will gladly move. We are all working together here so of course I don't want things to get ugly."

Seven of the 10 shop owners The Straits Times spoke to said they did not mind the fortune-tellers, as long as they did not create trouble. "They are part of the festivity - plus they are just harmless old men, so who am I to deny them a chance to do business?" asked Sally Kwan, 65, in Mandarin.

A 69-year-old noodle-stall owner, who wanted to be known only as Mr Lee, said in Mandarin: "I don't understand the fuss. When this whole street is famous for the Chinese New Year cheer, these fortune-tellers actually help us generate customers."

The National Environment Agency declined to comment on whether or not the fortune-tellers required a licence to operate there. But a police spokesman said they would act on the fortune-tellers only if a public complaint were made against them.

"It is an offence for any fortune-teller to cause nuisance, impose on or deceive the public, or conduct any criminal activity," he said.