The Jakarta administration is gearing up for Ramadhan, which will begin on June 18, by implementing restrictions on business hours for entertainment venues.
Tourism and Culture Agency head Purba Hutapea said the agency had issued a letter to all entertainment businesses in the city. In the letter, he said, selected entertainment venues were forbidden from operating during Ramadhan.
“Several entertainment venues are forbidden from operating, such as nightclubs, discotheques, spas, massage parlors and bars. Billiard halls located within such areas also may not operate,” Purba said on Sunday.
Other kinds of entertainment venues, he went on, are allowed to operate with limited business hours. Karaoke and entertainment venues with live music are allowed to operate only from 8:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Further, stand-alone billiard halls may operate from 10 a.m. until midnight.
“This policy takes effect one day before Ramadhan, during Idul Fitri and one day after Idul Fitri,” Purba said.
He said that the agency would cooperate with the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), the Jakarta Police and the Indonesian Military (TNI) to supervise the entertainment venues.
“We will close any entertainment venues that violate the regulations,” Purba said.
He also told mass organizations not to conduct raids as such actions fell within the duties of Satpol PP and the police.
Deputy Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat also urged restaurants to install curtains on their windows during Ramadhan in order to respect those who are fasting.
Meanwhile, Jakarta residents have also prepared for the holy month of Ramadhan by practicing ancestral traditions.
On Sunday, pilgrims flocked to cemeteries throughout the city to visit their families’ graves ahead of Ramadhan. Several cemeteries, including Karet Bivak public cemetery in Central Jakarta, were packed with visitors, causing traffic in surrounding areas.
Dewi Irma, 31, said she and her family visited her grandfather’s tomb at the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery Kalibata in South Jakarta over the weekend.
“This is our family’s annual tradition to welcome Ramadhan,” she said on Sunday, adding that the tradition came from her mother’s family.
This year’s visit, she said, was carried out on Saturday to coincide with the birthday of her late grandfather.
Traditions ahead of Ramadhan vary. Yogi Ikhwan, a civil servant at the city’s Sanitation Agency, said his family did not have certain rituals such as visiting families’ and relatives’ graves before the fasting month. Instead, he was expecting to participate in a tradition called munggahan (big feast) at his office.
“Every unit in my office holds munggahan or a big feast together. Most of them held it last week. But my unit will hold it on Monday. It’s probably a Sundanese tradition,” he said on Sunday.
He said civil servants in his agency had their own way of carrying out the tradition with some of them chipping in to buy food, bringing homemade food to the office or eating out together in restaurants.
The Jakarta Post
