T

he Jakarta administration is considering obliging mini markets and convenience stores that sell alcohol to install closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras to monitor minors.

Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama said recently that he planned to require all stores that sell beer and other alcoholic drinks to install CCTV.

'€œThe CCTV will be used to monitor minors who intend to buy alcohol and prohibit them from buying it,'€ he said, as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

Ahok said the prohibition against selling alcohol to minors did not need to be legalized under a bylaw. '€œWe decided in a recent leadership meeting that it does not need a bylaw. We just have to oblige the stores to install CCTV,'€ he said.

Jakarta does not have a specific bylaw that prohibits the sale of liquor to minors. The city only has Bylaw No. 6/1968 on alcohol sales and taxation. The bylaw only obliges stores that want to sell alcohol to have a license from the city administration.

Ahok said only licensed stores would be obliged to install CCTV while the unlicensed must be shut down.

The Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) has been raiding illegal vendors that sell bootleg liquor mixed with other substances, locally called oplosan, because of cases that have led to several deaths.

The city confiscated 3,000 bottles of oplosan during the operation. Some of the seized liquor had been mixed with other substances like over-the-counter drugs or hazardous ones like mosquito pesticide, presumably to speed up its effect.

Wiwiek Yusuf, the marketing director of PT Indamarco Pristama, which runs Indomaret, said that his company would comply with the plan.

'€œHaving CCTV is standard in all our stores, so there is no problem with it,'€ he said.

He said, however, that he still had no idea about who would monitor the CCTV records.

Wiwiek said he also urged the city administration to apply the same regulation to regular or traditional stores that sell alcohol.

He said that it must not use a double standard. '€œThey are strict with us, but never control or monitor other stores,'€ he said.

Wiwiek said both the city administration and the central government should regulate the whole sector, including the distributors, retailers and producers.

Although the city administration does not have the legal basis to prohibit retailers from selling alcohol to minors, most convenience stores don'€™t as a matter of operational policy.

Solihin, a 23-year-old worker at the 7-Eleven convenience store in Bendungan Hilir, Central Jakarta, said customers under 21 years old were not allowed to buy beer or other alcoholic beverages.

'€œThe adults are also not allowed to drink the beverages in this store,'€ he said.

Solihin said he rarely checked the ID of the customers as he usually could tell if the customers were minors.

'€œWe usually tell them [minors] that they are not allowed to buy the alcohol. They usually comply with the regulation,'€ he said.

He added that he would only check their IDs if they acted suspiciously, but still wanted to buy the alcohol.

The same thing was done by Mardiana, who works at an Indomaret outlet in Bendungan Hilir. '€œTheir gestures usually give away that they are still minors,'€ she said.

She said she rarely found minors who tried to buy alcohol. '€œI only found one or two students. They usually immediately run away if we find out that they are minors,'€ she said.