Irregular signboards draw complaints
By Rosli Abidin Yahya & Hj Mohd Said

These signboards adhere to the regulations. However, there are some shops which do not comply with such order

The appearance of some signboards or labels at shops, which allegedly do not follow the regulations, has surprised some members of the public.

They hoped that the relevant government agencies would come down hard on shop owners who did not comply with the laws on proper labelling of the signboards.

"A signboard must have Jawi inscription at the top part followed by the name of the company in roman letters.

"However, if we look around there are some signboards which totally missed out the Jawi writings and show the Chinese characters instead. We thought we were in Hong Kong instead," they said.

Observers believed that such signboards may have been put up by shopowners who have not obtained a licence to operate.

"It is important for shops and business establishments to comply with the regulation because the signboards reflect the culture of this country," they said.

They were also hoping for action to be taken against shops and business establishments which placed their labels in a spot which blocks windows, making it difficult for the building's occupants to escape in case of a fire.

They felt that some signboards did not comply with the by-laws and they urged the relevant agencies to issue a notice to owners of such buildings to take down their illegal signboards and re-position or replace them with proper ones.

In cases where the owners failed to comply, the relevant authorities must take down the illegal structures and charge the owners for the job done to rectify the problem before summoning them to court, they said.

They proposed that a special team led by an architect should be set up to survey the number of illegal signboards.

Courtesy of Sunday Bulletin