40,000 Jakarta nightclub workers facing layoffs

Damar Harsanto and Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Workers in the entertainment industry are paying dearly for the current police campaign against drugs in cafes and amusement centers across the capital.

The Association of Indonesian Entertainment Center Owners (Aspehindo) said on Monday that at least 40,000 workers of the entertainment centers would have to be told to stay at home and risk losing their jobs should the police continue the current drug raids on night spots, such as discotheques, cafes and karaoke centers.

Aspehindo chairman Adrian Maelite said that many owners of entertainment centers have laid off workers in order to cut costs amid significantly lower business.

"Recent drug raids by the police have scared the customers away. Some owners have decided to open only on weekends as a result of lower customer numbers, forcing them to lay off most of their workers," he told The Jakarta Post.

Should the police continue with their aggressive raids on entertainment centers, there would be massive lay-offs in the industry within several weeks, he warned.

"In one or two weeks, entertainment center owners will have to send home 30 percent of their workers or more than 120,000 people," he said.

There are around 400,000 people working in entertainment centers in the city, mostly discotheques and karaoke centers, which account for 60 percent of the total number of workers.

Adrian said that the police drug raids had tarnished the image of entertainment centers.

"We would call on the police to launch covert drug operations so that they do not disturb our customers, instead of launching blanket raids," he said.

The police raids have been making the headlines recently as several well-known people have been caught in the dragnet, including former world boxing champion Ellyas Pical and film star Ria Irawan.

Adrian questioned police's policy of focusing on nightspots, pointing to the low number of customers found to have consumed or be in possession of illegal drugs.

He said that only 5 percent of the customers from whom urine samples had been taken had tested positive for drugs and that the police had discovered 190 ecstasy pills in three weeks of operations, while no other illicit drugs, like heroin and marijuana, for example, had been found.

Meanwhile, chief of Jakarta Police's drug squad, Sr. Comr. Carlo Brix Tewu, emphasized that police would continue with the raids.

"We will continue launching antidrug raids until nightspot managements are willing to take part in the drive by making sure that their premises are free of drug abuse and drug dealing," he told the Post.

He said that the managements of nightspots could take part in the antidrug campaign by putting up posters and announcements strictly prohibiting guests from carrying illicit drugs.

In the three-week operation, he said, around 10,000 customers were examined, but only 1,300 were asked to undergo urine tests.

"We found 140 of the people whose urine samples were tested to have consumed drugs," he said.