Most Jakarta nightspots lack safety system
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
It is a three-story building, with rooms each measuring six meters by seven meters. All of them are used in conjunction with the entertainment center, with the upper rooms functioning as karaoke lounges.
Every night visitors pack the three rooms, including the karaoke hall of the Lokasari, dubbed the oldest entertainment center and located in West Jakarta.
Surprisingly all three rooms have only one door to enter and leave. Fire exits? Certainly not considered by the building's owner.
No one could imagine how visitors could escape should fire gut the building, as there is only one door measuring less than two meters high by 80 centimeters wide as the only means of entering or leaving.
"That's the only access. It also serves as the fire exit. There's no back door," said the entertainment center's receptionist, pointing to the door.
Such lack of safety awareness might have been the most serious factor contributing to last week's fatal fire that gutted a five- story nightclub, Heppi Karaoke, in Palembang, South Sumatra. The building had no fire exits. No wonder that 52 people were killed in the fire.
Such an accident could happen anywhere, especially in large cities that have abundant high-rise buildings, such as Jakarta.
"Many buildings here do not have fire safety systems as required by the City Fire Agency. That is solely due to building owners' willful disobedience," said chief of the operations division at Jakarta Fire Agency Ishak Sulaiman.
Ishak said the owners or users were often reluctant to allow regular checks to be made of their buildings' fire safety systems. Most had also provided minimal fire safety equipment, such as portable extinguishers, sprinklers, automatic alarms and hydrants.
The most recent data at the city administration shows there are about 1,400 nightspots operating in the capital, including massage parlors and billiard centers, employing 150,000 people.
The owners can easily ignore the requirements, Ishak remarked, regretting that City Bylaw No. 3/1992 on fire prevention failed to stipulate harsher penalties for violators.
According to the bylaw, those who fail to comply with the requirements are subject to three months in jail or a Rp 50,000 (about US$5.50) fine.
A new bylaw, issued last year, increased the fine to Rp 5 million. "The amount seems derisory to most businesspeople," said Ishak.
In a related development, head of Jakarta Building Control Agency Jumhana Tjakrawirya revealed that when applying for a building permit many businessmen did not say that their building would be used as an entertainment center or nightspot.
"They ask for building permits for office buildings or shops. Later, after receiving the permits, they use the buildings for entertainment purposes, and they get a permit from the City Tourism Office," Jumhana told The Jakarta Post.
Jumhana said administrative penalties would be imposed on those violating building and building use permits. "We shall issue written warnings before sealing off the nightspots."
Meanwhile, an official at the City Tourism Office revealed that many nightspot operators often had excuses for not having adequate fire exits in their buildings.
"Many of them lock the fire exits, leaving a single access and exit available to make it easier for security guards to monitor, through fear of pickpockets or uninvited visitors entering the premises," said the official who asked to remain anonymous.
Following the Palembang inferno, he claimed his office had sent out warning circulars to nightspots in the capital to improve their fire prevention systems.
"At least, if there is no fire exit, they could enlarge the building's main doors," said the official, who also wished to remain anonymous.
Last year, the entertainment industry contributed Rp 65 billion in entertainment taxes to the city's total revenue of Rp 3.6 trillion.