The operators said the red tape imposed on them was unfair as the city council was treating guesthouses and regular hotels as equals.
Besides paying RM7,200 a year for a “provisional licence fee”, guesthouse operators said they now had to pay architects huge sums in order to submit proper building plans required of them.
Tony Yeoh, a spokesperson for the affected guesthouses, said it was unfair for the local authority to treat them like regular hotels as most had less than 10 rooms.
He said the timing of such laws and fees was also unfortunate as operators were already struggling to make ends meet, as their rooms were priced lower than that of regular hotels.
Yeoh said the fees for their temporary operating permits were “exorbitant” and were “arbitrarily” determined by the state government without consultation with them.
“We, in this industry simply cannot afford it. We find this temporary permit fee to be unreasonably high and questionable in its intention, particularly when the permanent permit fee is only a fraction of it,” he said on behalf of 70 guesthouse operators at a protest in Stewart Lane here over the weekend.
The guesthouses in question operate in pre-war shophouses, with a majority of them located within the heritage site.
The authorities have imposed stringent laws on the pre-war shophouses due to fire safety rules and the heritage site’s planning rules called the Special Area Plan (SAP), that came into effect recently.
Besides building plans, fire safety concerns and others, the new George Town World Heritage SAP make guesthouses illegal as they fall outside areas specially marked for hotels.
Yeoh explained that in 2014, the Penang government planned to initiate an “amnesty” programme for guesthouses and B&B establishments. They were told they needed to fork out only RM2,400 for a temporary permit.
He said they were later told however to submit building plans, a heritage impact report, fire safety report, change of use application and contribution fee for a public parking lot.
“The city council currently requires hotel operators to contribute towards the provision of motorcycle and car parks, that is, for every 1,500 sq metres, one motorcycle and one car park is required each, costing RM2,500 and RM25,000 respectively.
“Only one guesthouse in Chulia Street complied with the ruling and it cost the owner more than RM1 million to meet all the requirements set.
“How are we to afford such an amount?” Yeoh asked.
The group plans to picket outside the World Tourism Conference event at the E&O Hotel today at noon and hand over a memorandum to Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz, who is a guest of honour at the function.