Entertainment centers in West Java to close on religious holidays

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

Following a month-long polemic between the owners of entertainment venues and local Muslim organizations, the West Java provincial legislative council passed a bill on the closure of entertainment centers, restaurants and nightspots during certain religious events into a bylaw that came into effect as of Nov. 20.

The bylaw regulates that all kinds of entertainment centers, restaurants and nightspots are to close every year during the fasting month of Ramadhan (Muslim), Christmas (Christians), Enlightenment Day (Hinduism) and Waisak Day (Buddhism).

The bylaw was endorsed in the legislature's plenary session here on Tuesday which was also attended by many Muslim students and workers of entertainment venues in the city.

Muslim students and workers of several entertainment venues have separately demonstrated several times outside the legislative council to relate their conflicting aspirations.

Muslim students have demanded that the legislature and the provincial administration close all entertainment venues during the fasting month while the workers have protested the move, saying it would put them out of work temporarily.

Budiana Kosasih, chairman of the legislature's special committee which deliberated the bill, hailed the bylaw, saying it gives fair treatment to all religious communities in the province.

"The bylaw gives equal treatment and opportunities for religious communities to uphold their own faiths in line with their religious teaching," he said.

The workers, mostly employed at billiard halls, protested the bylaw, saying billiard halls should be allowed to continue operation during the fasting month because billiards was a sport.

"We are not prostitutes, and billiard halls are not parlors," said one women worker.

Budiana admitted that the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle Party (PDI Perjuangan) faction had objected to the closure of entertainment venues during the fasting month because it would cause massive, temporary lay-offs.

Herry May Oloan, a member of the PDI Perjuangan faction, said his faction had grudgingly accepted the bylaw's endorsement as it gained a majority of legislators' approval.

Gugum Gumbira, chief of the city administration's fee collection unit, said the one-month closure of restaurants and entertainment centers and nightspots during the fasting month would not overly affect the city administration's income because many entertainment centers had not paid their taxes.

"With the bylaw, the city administration is expected to lose only around Rp 600 million in taxes and levies from the entertainment sector," he said.