'Alcohol ban won't be enforced'

The Jakarta trade agency has decided to prohibit the sales of liquor with more than 5 percent alcohol (wine and spirits) by all but the duty-free shops and put the age limit for at 21. The Jakarta Post asked some local people what they thought of the new regulation.

Wuri, 38, is a civil servant at the Ministry of Home Affairs. She lives with her husband and children in Tebet, South Jakarta:

Basically, I agree very much with the decision to ban liquor, but I doubt that the authorities are serious.

We can always see high school and junior high school students in uniform drinking cheap liquor in the alleys.

This shows that the city administration and police fail to crack down on the shops that sell those drinks. We all know that we have clear regulations prohibiting people to sell liquor to minors.

Vira, 26, is an employee of a property management company in Central Jakarta. She lives with her family in Ciputat, South Jakarta:

I believe that we already had good regulations on liquor before this.

I've noticed that several liquor shops had really enforced the regulations as they would not sell liquor to anyone. I even saw my friend rejected by a liquor shop because he failed to show his ID.

The problem is that the police or government fail to stop the sales of illegal home-made spirits or smuggled booze.

-- The Jakarta Post