“The officer in charge then asks if the performer onstage has a permit, as in an individual permit to perform, or a busking permit, I’m really not sure and neither was he, to be honest. And he then says all performers need this permit but no one knows who issues it or where to get it. I remember some time back, DBKL was issuing buskers permits, but MBPJ has no such thing (we think). In any case, I don’t recall this being a part of any published SOPs,” they explained.
Merdekarya also noted that the enforcement officers had no idea what the Permit Sementara was that they had mentioned previously, despite their own licensing department telling them to apply for it.
“They then go on to tell us that we are the only place having live shows and that no one else is allowed to, which is again obviously rubbish, but we diam jelah coz we don’t want to get others into trouble.”
In conclusion, the officers told the venue that they can only operate with a renewed hiburan license which they won’t be renewing for them, as they only renew it for venues that have been paying continuously throughout the past two years. Merderkarya explained in the post that this is not true because their own licensing department had put a hold on renewals.