The Malaysia Retailers Association, Malaysia Retail Chain Association and Malaysia Shopping Malls Association said they support actions that will mitigate the spread of Covid-19 but are “perplexed” by the sudden change of operating hours, as all businesses had been allowed to operate up to 2am.

Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari had announced the 11pm closing time yesterday. He said the directive is in line with the government’s current ban on all nightclubs and bars.

However, the retailers urged Amirudin to urgently review the change and allow common operating hours for all types of businesses, especially in the food and beverage industry, to prevent further losses for these businesses.

They said “closing at 11pm has no relevance to the steps required to stem the spread of the disease”, adding that strict compliance with SOPs would be more effective in containing Covid-19.

“We believe this sudden change in operation hours on a selective category of business is not the solution but is instead detrimental to the efforts to recover, revive and survive with the reopening of the economy,” they added.

The groups also said there was no correlation between operating hours of restaurants-bars with the spike in Covid-19 cases.

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