Jakarta inches toward new 'prohibition era'

Jakarta inches toward new 'prohibition era'

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Do not expect to find many alcoholic drinks in supermarkets
during this year's Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations in
Jakarta, as the sale of drinks with more than 5 percent alcohol
has been banned by the city administration.

The City Industry and Trade Agency has decided to issue a
circular recently, which forbids the sale of "type B" (e.g. wine,
champagne) and "type C" (e.g. spirits) alcoholic drinks in
supermarkets and hypermarkets throughout Jakarta. The agency dug
up and invoked a 1997 Presidential Decree on the monitoring and
control of alcoholic drinks, as well as the now-defunct Ministry
of Industry and Trade's Decree No. 359/MPP/Kep/10/1997 on
monitoring and control of production, importation, distribution
and sale of alcoholic drinks.

Jakarta's new prohibition coincides with a similar prohibition
in neighboring Tangerang municipality, which outlaws the sale and
distribution of all alcoholic drinks, including beer.

Both regulations stipulate that selling alcoholic drinks is
banned except in duty-free stores.

"We haven't been selling alcoholic beverages, other than beer,
since the beginning of the fasting month, but since receiving the
circular we have taken the products off the shelves altogether,"
Carrefour Indonesia's corporate affairs director Irawan D.
Kadarman said.

And indeed, the special wine section located at the back of
Carrefour's Lebak Bulus store in South Jakarta -- the retail main
office -- is instead stocked with cigarettes, beer and sparkling
fruit juices.

Type A beverages are those with between 1 percent and 5
percent alcohol, while type B contains between 5 percent and 20
percent and type C between 20 percent and 55 percent alcohol.

Beer usually contains between 3 percent and 6 percent. Most
wines contain between 9 percent and 20 percent alcohol, while
distilled spirits or "hard liquor" usually have more than 20
percent alcohol content.

The Ranch Market in Pondok Indah, South Jakarta, has also
taken alcoholic beverages off the shelves, and replaced its wine-
cellar style racks with sparkling non-alcoholic beverages and
fruit juices.

"We haven't been selling liquor since before Ramadhan, and we
have used the racks to display other products," a staffer told
The Jakarta Post.

Despite the new prohibition era, however, the Post discovered
on Wednesday that several supermarkets such as Hero and Sogo
inside the Pondok Indah Mall were still well-stocked with foreign
wines and liquors.

Neither of those store's representatives were reached for
comment.