KUALA LUMPUR: Police detained 118 individuals at a "restaurant" that was operating beyond the permitted hours at the Khoon Lin Court Building in Jalan Yew, here in the wee hours of this morning.
The operating licence for the premises designates it as a restaurant but it was operating as an entertainment outlet.
The soundproof protection of the entertainment outlet in the basement of the building which was filled to the brim with patrons did not fool the Wangsa Maju district police who raided it at 1am today.
District Police Chief Superintendent Ashari Abu Samah said police raided the outlet following a public tip-off and surveillance.
At the time of the raid, he said the place was packed with 109 patrons; 68 men, 41 women, and nine workers, who were all slapped with RM5,000 compound, each.
"Police also conducted urine test on all those detained and three patrons including two foreign women tested positive".
During the raid, one of the women who tested positive also could not provide any identification papers and caused a ruckus.
"We believe she is either from the Phillippines or Myanmar and had come here with a local man she befriended while working at a food stall. We are unable to gather any information from her in her present state. The man who brought her there also didn't seem to know much about her," he said after the raid.
Earlier during the documentation processes, the woman was behaving in a very unruly manner and cursed the officers present.
She also started to fall down, screaming and crying.
"Policewomen tried to calm her down but to no avail. She had to be put in handcuffs and was taken to the police headquarters for her drug offence," he said.
Ashari said checks showed that the outlet has an operating licence from City Hall but not as an entertainment outlet.
It is learnt that the entertainment outlet was also renovated to be soundproof to avoid detection and it operates until late.
"This place has been raided several times in the past but that has not deterred them from re-opening after some time. Today, we slapped the operator with a RM25,000 compound for defying the government's pandemic order and hope it's a good lesson," Ashari said.
The compounds were issued for violating the standard operating procedure (SOP) under Regulation 18, Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases and Regulations (No. 4) 2021.
In an SOP issued on March 11, the Government said anyone found flouting the MCO could be compounded up to RM10,000.
The Senior Defence Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said a compound of up to RM50,000 would also be issued to entertainment outlets found operating because entertainment centres are still on the banned list.
However, in a most recent revised SOP order, Ismail Sabri said the government has reduced the compound by half.
It has also gazetted the revision under the Emergency Ordinance (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases) (Amendment) 2021.