Government firm on faulty discotheques
Government firm on faulty discotheques
JAKARTA (JP): Governor Surjadi Soedirdja says that the city administration will continue to take firm action against discotheques which violated the regulations governing entertainment centers.
"If a discotheque is found to have breached the regulations, including deliberately using the place for transactions involving various banned drugs, it will be closed down for good. This is important to protect the young generation," Surjadi said during a meeting at City Hall on Monday.
"I don't understand why a related office closed down discotheques one night and then allowed them to open the next day," the governor added, apparently referring to the temporary closure of the Tanamur discotheque and the Cafe Batavia restaurant early last week.
That kind of action, Surjadi said, would impair the authority and credibility of city administration.
Last week, the city public order office announced it had closed several discotheques for violating regulations: Terminal One, Glodok; Unicorn, Mangga Dua; Tanamur and Metropolis. The Cafe Batavia restaurant in Kota was also closed, on April 10, apparently because the public order office had mistakenly believed it was a discotheque and, as such, subject to a 2:00 a.m. closing time.
The Terminal One and Unicorn discotheques were closed down on April 7, and Tanamur on April 10. The latter was closed down because, the authorities claimed, it had been used as a drug dealing site, while Metropolis was shut down because it was said to have hired foreign artists illegally.
The office permitted Tanamur and Cafe Batavia to reopen the next day.
Head of the public order office, Kuseini Budiantoro, said yesterday that the decision to allow Tanamur to reopen was based on the discotheque's management's catching a group of drug dealers and turning them in to the police.
"We have no reason to close it down permanently because it helped the city administration catch these wanted people," Kuseini said.
He added that if the city closed the discotheque for good it would make other such places afraid to report or turn in drug dealers and other criminals to the authorities.
"And in the end the authorities will have difficulty in getting information," Kuseini said. (yns/31)