DBKL Instructs Organisers Of Beer Festival To Cancel Event
A PAS central committee member recently called the beer fest as a "vice festival".
By Tang Ruxyn — 18 Sep 2017, 03:52 PM
It's official. The Better Beer Festival 2017 has been cancelled after it failed to get approval from Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL).
The festival was scheduled to take place at the Publika mall in Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur, on 6 and 7 October. It was expected to be the "biggest celebration of the craft beer revolution in Malaysia".
However, Sinar Harian broke the news earlier today that DBKL has rejected the organiser's application to host the event.
The report cited its corporate communications director Khalid Zakaria, who said that DBKL had received the application on 28 August, but decided to not approve the activity at the end of the day.
"If the organisations were to proceed, DBKL has the right to take action under existing legal provisions," he was quoted as saying.
The festival's organiser, Mybeer (M) Sdn Bhd, has also confirmed that the event will not be proceeding as scheduled
"At our meeting with the officials at the Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur, we were instructed to cancel our event as there are issues with the licensing."
"We were further informed that the decision was made due to the political sensitivity surrounding the event," it said in a press statement.
The Better Beer Festival 2017 was supposed to the be sixth time the annual event will be held in Malaysia and about 6,000 people were expected to show up for the beer-tasting event.
The first time the festival was held in Malaysia was back in 2012, when 200 people attended the event at the Taps Beer Bar in Changkat Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur.
Prior to this, PAS criticised the annual event and called it a "vice festival"
About a week ago, PAS central committee member Riduan Mohd Nor claimed that the Better Beer Festival 2017 will likely anger Muslims in the country.
"It is something that is shameful for an Islamic country like Malaysia, when mungkar (treacherous) programmes can easily gain a place in the society's heart and it is allowed to be organised without obstruction."
"We can't bear it if Kuala Lumpur is known by the world as Asia's biggest vice centre," he said in a statement that was published on PAS mouthpiece HarakahDaily on 10 September.
Riduan also said that there is no guarantee that the event would not lead to crime, rape, sex outside of marriage and other vices.
He noted that while Muslims are not the targeted group for participation, he argued that there is no limit or obstructions if there are Muslims who join, thus inviting anyone to attend including Muslims.
Meanwhile, a check on the festival's Facebook event revealed that the page is flooded with comments protesting against the event in the past few days
On the other hand, quite a number of people are hoping that the organisers will make a back-up plan and consider to host the event at another location instead of in Kuala Lumpur
