A restaurant in Petaling Jaya was forced to take down a banner on its premises that read “Got Pork, Got Lard!” which was intended to promote its signature pork dishes.
The eatery is part of a music venue called Merdekarya, popular for its open mic nights and as a space for bands to perform live.
“We were told to take down the banner and kena saman for putting up the banner without a permit, which is fair because we didn’t actually have a permit, didn’t even know we needed one to put up a banner on our own premises, but apparently it’s a legit thing according to Seksyen Something-Something of Akta Something-Something,” the business said in a Facebook post.
They were cooperative, and said they were going to take the banner down anyway regardless of the local council’s action.
According to Merdekarya, the issue came about when a complaint was filed against their banner promoting pork openly.
The banner went viral after a social media user called it out
Earlier, we reported about a Threads user who shared a picture of the banner and criticising it, calling it biadab (disrespectful).
He argued that even advertisements for cigarettes and liquor cannot be made openly.
However, many came to the defence of the restaurant in the comments section.
One commenter asked why would anyone be offended by the banner, accusing the person who posted the content as a “professional pot stirrer”.
Malaysia has no federal law that bans non-Muslim businesses from advertising pork to customers
But interestingly, the Trade Descriptions (Certification and Marking of Halal) Order 2011 targets the opposite situation. Paragraph 4(1) makes it an offence to offer food with a representation likely to mislead people into thinking it is halal.
So it was actually better for Merdekarya to be honest in their advertising rather than not be upfront about selling pork.
In any case, Bar B at Merdekarya is still open – banner or no banner – on Sundays only from 6pm to 9pm.