City to keep an eye on fire safety at nightclubs

The Jakarta administration is gearing up to launch a series of inspections of nightclubs in the city to check their fire safety standards ahead of the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Head of the City Building Supervision Agency (P2B) Hari Sasongko said the inspections aimed at ensuring nightclub managements meet the required fire safety
standards.
“We will check fire extinguishers, electrical systems and emergency exits available at the premises,” Hari said. The agency would include an electrical inspection as most fires were caused by short circuits due to poorly maintained electrical wiring. The City Fire Agency reported earlier that, as of November, the agency had recorded 736 fires this year, claiming 39 lives and injuring 26 residents. No data were immediately available Wednesday as to the corresponding period last year, but for the entire year, the figure stood at 818 fires.
Hari said his agency was still considering the possibility of inspecting interior building materials, given that all nightclubs allow people to smoke. His agency would reprimand some 1,300 managements of entertainment venues, including karaoke halls, on this issue.
“As a minimum, they have to have illuminated exit signs so people can escape in case of emergency,”
he said.
City Governor Fauzi Bowo has told his subordinates to intensify their inspections of nightclubs
following the recent nightclub
inferno in Medan, North Sumatra that killed 20.
Earlier this week, the administration closed two nightclubs in West Jakarta for failing to meet fire safety standards. The Ratu Ayu discotheque on Jl. Hayam Wuruk and Sahara discotheque on Jl. Pangeran Jayakarta were sealed by officers. The officers did not find any fire alarms or fire extinguishers at the four-story Ratu Ayu and four-story Sahara, and the latter did not even have any emergency exits.
Hari said the agency would inspect the building permits of the entertainment venues too.
He said his agency would draft a gubernatorial decree that would regulate the law enforcement of building use violations next year. The gubernatorial decree would help his officers enforce the law using all the steps necessary to take action against law offenders.
“Currently, we rely on a bylaw that only regulates things in general. The decree will give clear guidance to officers in the field [to implement the bylaw],” he said.
Architect Ridwan Kamil said the Jakarta administration should learn from the Surabaya administration in East Java on building use permits, saying the capital city was weak in monitoring the zoning system which differentiated building usage, including in commercial districts and housing estates.
“In our city the zoning system is often ignored for the sake of economic interests,” he said.   
Hari said homes which had been turned into commercial premises on Jl. Pangeran Antasari, Pondok Indah and Kebayoran Baru in South Jakarta, and Menteng in Central Jakarta would top the list of priority inspections. In West Jakarta the inspections would focus on housing estates converted into commercial complexes.
“We seal houses which have been converted into business premises. In South Jakarta alone, we have sealed 100 buildings,” he said.