KUALA Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) has imposed a wide sweeping alcohol sales ban and a string of restrictions and compliance laws that seems set to be emulated by other local governments all across the country, subsequently.
This move by DBKL has set tongues wagging while many harbour the perception that Malaysia may be going the way of the far and few Islamic nations that have declared their territories as “alcohol free” where alcohol importation, manufacturing, sales and consumption have burrowed deep and wide into the black market.
While consuming alcohol in excess is injurious to health and can harm families, the new string of restrictions and compliance rules introduced by DBKL to curb access to alcohol, wine and beer screams of mockery.
Let me explain why.
1. The ban on the sale of liquor at grocers, convenience stores, and Chinese medicinal shops may seem to curtail liquor consumption.
But beer is tolerated and can be sold. What is the correlating logic between a ban on liquor and the permitting of beer sales and ease of access?
2. While liquor cannot be sold at grocers, convenience stores and Chinese medicinal shops, customers can still purchase beer at the said premises, but only from 7am to 9pm daily. The logic here is indeed baffling.
3. Outlets now have to provide separate displays and sales areas for alcohol, which must be closed after the permitted hours. While businesses are struggling to even get back on their knees under the consequences of tackling the plaguing Covid-19 and its emerging variants, you now impose additional cost burdens on operators to comply with the fittings, furnishings, and renovations needed to create segregated spaces and display areas.
4. If the move to restrict sales and even ban alcohol sales is not motivated by a hidden agenda of religious bigotry and extremism but solely out of concern for health and the well-being of society (as we are made to believe), compelling Chinese medicinal halls to now obtain approval from the Health Ministry to sell mixed or pure liquor for medicinal purposes seems like a giveaway.
5. Pubs, bars, lounges, and restaurants with licences to sell alcohol will now only be allowed to serve liquor between 10am and midnight.
And such business premises can apply for a time extension until 2am only. If this is not making life difficult, pray tell me what else it could be. On one hand, we want to be a major tourist and business destination on the world map, while on the other hand we dictate our ridiculously restrictive terms to visitors patronising pubs, bars, lounges, and restaurants.
6. It is further enforced that warehouses that store, sell, and supply beer for events must obtain a licence to sell liquor. Is this because of the percentage strength of alcohol presence per measure or is it yet another dubious attempt to rake in more bonus earnings for the authorities?
7. Shophouses, hotels, malls, supermarkets, and hypermarkets are now required to obtain a licence to sell liquor, which must be displayed at the entrance of their premises at all times. Does that mean customers – citizens and tourists – can only purchase or consume alcohol at licensed premises and they will need to see such permits visibly displayed at the entrance of hotels, for example? And is the game plan to have a growing number of “alcohol-free” hotels in the country just like how we have created “no smoking” premises?
8. Shophouses, hotels, malls, supermarkets, and hypermarkets selling liquor must not be within 100m of police stations, houses of worship, schools, hospitals, and residential houses. In a country where buildings are erected hugging roads and lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to a variety of businesses, does this new ruling not sound absurd? And anyway, would a 100m distance purify police stations, houses of worship, schools, hospitals, and residential houses and keep them safely away from such liquor-selling spots? Maybe that distance will gradually be increased to a kilometre in the future?
9. Businesses selling liquor must display a QR code at the premises. So are customers required to scan in on their phones before entering now? And if it is, then is this not policing people using advancing IT and AI technologies? Whatever happened to all the talk about respecting the universal rights to privacy?
10. Making it so “only non-Muslims will be allowed to be applicants and licence holders and that the owners of business premises, sole proprietors, or partnerships and the majority of company board members must be non-Muslims” opens a Pandora’s box.
While it appears to sanctify Muslims from a “haram” business indulgence, what about the revenue through tax money raked in from land leases, sales tax, licenses, etc. that are used for national budgets and development?
In 2019 alone, the brewery industry brought in some RM2.27 billion in tax revenue to the public coffers. This is not to forget that there is an estimated tax revenue loss of RM1 billion a year caused by illicit alcohol in the country.
In a nutshell, this “holier-than-thou” enactment is plain mockery.
Surely the authorities would have earned a good name in the global arena if their determination was to arrest the drug abuse problem in the country or the widespread obesity among Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
And the Keluarga Malaysia national campaign would have been given a booster image if a more legitimate fight against illicit drugs, instead of targeting the non-Muslims’ interest in and rights to liquor, alcohol, wine, and beer, was spearheaded by DBKL and emulated nationwide.
From the poor man’s ganja to the elitists’ access to designer drugs, we all know how serious this is, as the problem keeps escalating year after year. – The Vibes, November 3, 2021
The writer is a reader of The Vibes
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