Did DBKL shut down a comedy club in KL because of one bad patron? We asked lawyers

Aight, we won’t keep you in the intro for too long; y’all have probably heard about the Crackhouse comedy club kerfuffle by now. We’ll give a summary of why it happened, but the club’s been temporarily closed down by the Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL).

This isn’t the first time the city council has given businesses involuntary time off, though. They’ve done that multiple times in the past, whether it’s cuz businesses were unhygienic, had illegal operations or flouted SOPs during MCO, but what’s up with Crackhouse? Why was the comedy club ordered to shut down until further notice?

 

It began with a controversial “comedy” routine during an open-mic night

Earlier this month, Crackhouse held an open-mic night which, in case you didn’t know, meant that anyone could take the stage and do their comedy bit. Laughs all round. Pretty standard as far as Crackhouse goes.  What was unusual that night was a lady who, after stepping on stage, said this:

“Hello and assalamualaikum, everyone. My name is Siti Amira binti Abdullah. I’m from Kuala Kangsar, Perak. I’m a Malay Muslim, and I have memorized 15 verses of the Quran. But one second…”

Aaaand then proceeded to take her tudung, top, and long skirt off, revealing a separate, comparatively more risqué outfit underneath, before telling a couple of jokes. Siti’s (real name Siti Nuramira Abdullah) “performance” was recorded by her boyfriend, V. Alexander Navin, and the resulting video was posted on various social media platforms. We’re not entirely sure why they did this, maybe it’s for the shock factor, maybe it’s a meme we don’t understand, but whatever the case may be, the video went viral.

On 9 July, Crackhouse put up a statement on their Facebook page condemning the couple and mentioned they’ve made a police report on the incident:

The couple were subsequently investigated by various agencies, including the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department (JAWI) and PDRM. Siti Nuramira plead not guilty to charges of causing disharmony on grounds of religion under section 298A(1)(a) of the Penal Code, and Alexander Navin claimed trial (meaning he wanted to defend himself in court) on two counts of improper use of network facilities under section 233 (1) (a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. A crowdfund was set up to collect money to bail the couple out, and they were released on a bail of RM20K per person.

That brings us to the question: did this couple cause the DBKL to crack down on the Crackhouse? Well…

It’s actually cuz they didn’t have an entertainment license

Yeeeaaah, technically, Crackhouse wasn’t shut down because of Siti Nuramira and Alexander Navin. Amidst the uproar over the issue, the Deputy Federal Territories Minister, Jalaluddin Alias came out to clarify that Crackhouse was operating only with a restaurant license:

“Although several applications were made, the operators of the premises failed to comply with various requirements in each application… Such premises must have both operating and entertainment licences.”

Apparently, Crackhouse didn’t even have a license to operate between 2014 and 2017. So, we asked lawyer friends of ours (who wanted to stay anonymous) how this works, and basically, if you wanna organize shows and sell alcohol at your restaurant/bar/bistro/man cave, you’ve got to apply for an entertainment license from your local council first.

Without the license, the council (in our case, the DBKL) has the power under the Local Government Act 1976 and Entertainment (Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur) Act 1992 to suspend your business operations, either temporarily or permanently. One of the lawyer friends we talked to said:

“Crackhouse kena DBKL not really because of those two people lah, seems to me it’s legit a license thing.” – Anonymous lawyer who totally doesn’t work in KL

One of the comedy club’s owners, Rizal Van Geyzel, was arrested by the PDRM on 14 July cuz the PDRM found that some of the old videos of his comedy routines were unfunny allegedly touched on racial and religious stuff. He was released a day later.

As of the time of writing this article, the couple’s court cases are still ongoing, and Crackhouse is still shuttered, but before we finish off this article we just wanna say that it’s kinda weird how DBKL only suplex-ed the comedy club now – they’ve been running fine before the couple showed up with their shenanigans.

The thing is, what happened to Crackhouse is kind of a perfect shizzlestorm; the nature of an open-mic session is that anyone and everyone gets an opportunity to perform, but there will be people who will take advantage of that. And when something like this happens and the situation gets highlighted to the authorities, it gives them a reason to… crack down on the venue.

Uh huh, we made the same joke twice. #sorrynotsorry