Liquor license ban to stand until DBKL develops new guidelines - FT Minister
PARLIAMENT | The temporary ban on new liquor licenses in Kuala Lumpur will stand until a review of the law and Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) develops a new set of guidelines on issuance of licenses.
Federal Territories Minister Annuar Musa said this was following several road accidents and fatalities allegedly involving drink driving during the conditional movement control order (MCO) period...
PARLIAMENT | The temporary ban on new liquor licenses in Kuala Lumpur will stand until a review of the law and Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) develops a new set of guidelines on issuance of licenses.
Federal Territories Minister Annuar Musa said this was following several road accidents and fatalities allegedly involving drink driving during the conditional movement control order (MCO) period.
He said this in his parliamentary written reply to a question by Teresa Kok (Harapan-Seputeh) on the rationale behind the federal territory’ decision to freeze new liquor licence permits on June 2.
“In line with the latest developments and following the occurrence of several accidents involving hard liquor, it is appropriate for the issuance of new licenses for the sale of liquor be frozen for the time being, until a guideline and review of the law be done.
“DBKL is studying and benchmarking liquor license issuing models in other countries, such as Singapore, which limits the time liquor can be purchased, (as) the retail sale of alcoholic beverages is prohibited between 10.30pm and 7am.
“The research on the guideline on liquor licenses is being carried out together with other government ministries and agencies such as the Customs Department, Housing and Local Government Ministry, the Health Ministry and Transport Ministry,” Annuar wrote in his reply today.
Kok had also questioned if prior to the freeze, Annuar’s ministry had comprehensively studied the move which she said could “affect the ministry’s efforts to attract foreign tourists and businesses for hotels and entertainment centres”.
Despite criticism on drink driving, the alcohol industry and community activists have also panned the minister’s call to ban issuances of liquor licences as a knee-jerk reaction.
They claimed the majority of road deaths are linked to other causes such as reckless driving and speeding.
Government statistics show that from 2011 to 2019, there were 47 drink driving-related fatalities in Malaysia out of a total of 55,887 roads deaths.
The previous Pakatan Harapan had begun to look into revising current laws to impose heavier penalties for drink driving and other forms of reckless driving, prior to its collapse.
The endeavour was then taken up by the current Perikatan Nasional government.
Recently, Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong detailed some of the proposed amendments to the Road Transport Act 1987 for this purpose.
These include doubling the punishment against drunk drivers who cause death to up to 20 years imprisonment and imposing mandatory jail sentences for drivers in charge of a motor vehicle while exceeding the alcohol limit.
47 deaths out of 55,000! Drink driving leading to death is just a statistical error allowance. Almost doesn’t qualify as a statistic at all. Just indicates that there is a high statistical probability that we are getting overrun by religious zealots.
You should look into other causes of death like mat rempits accidents. Tell me whether u dare to ban the youngsters from riding their bikes.
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