no sale/no food before 3.00pm

uh oh, here it comes… the ‘mata-mata puasa’ (fasting police officers) at it again. this time it is a ruling that restaurants owned by muslims should be open only at 3.00pm.

this ruling came from the kuala terengganu municipal council. yes, at terengganu, not kelantan.

as you can see from the article, this ruling did not went well with the restaurant owners. they were not happy over it. for one thing, like one of them said, most of his customers are non muslims, so he need to open his restaurant as he need the business.

i can understand that because in penang, i can tell too that many non muslims like to patronise muslim’s stall/restaurant.

now why did the council wants the restaurant to open only after 3.00pm? was it they were afraid, muslims will patronise the restaurant? for one thing, if so, then might as well said open when puasa time is over, why 3.00pm. another thing… this is more important… and where my ‘mata-mata’ comes in… why the need to check on the muslims?

why i used the word ‘mata-mata’ is i feel why should the council be like a mata-mata to check on the muslims whether did they fast or not. actually i started using this phrase ‘mata-mata puasa’ long ago in another forum when we were debating about those officers from jabatan islam (or something like that) who goes round detaining those who do not fast.

if there is a ruling as restaurant not to be open until after 3.00pm, next thing you know, there’ll be a ruling that muslim workers in restaurants are not allowed to work in restaurants (whether owned by malays, chinese, indians)!! the authorities might think they’ll be tempted by the smell and thus ‘cannot tahan’ so must eat something.

as we all know, puasa is a very personal thing… between the individual and god, so why should the authorities come in with ridiculous rulings?