GEORGE TOWN, July 17 — The Penang Island City Council (MBPP) will be enforcing a ban on foreign cooks in all hawker stalls, food courts and coffee shops starting next year once the new policy is adopted.

MBPP councillor Tan Soo Siang said currently the proposal is on paper and it is still pending approval in the next council meeting.

“It is about 90 per cent complete so once it’s approved, it will be added to the city council by-laws to be enforceable,” she told reporters in a press conference together with state exco Jason H’ng Mooi Lye at Komtar today.

She said the process will take a while to complete.

“Our target is to enforce this in the beginning of next year,” she said.

She said the city council has received numerous complaints by locals regarding the quality of local food that were prepared by foreigners hired to run hawkers stalls in privately owned food courts, hawker centres and coffee shops.

“Ratepayers have questioned why we were not taking action so we decided to extend this ban to privately owned hawker centres, food courts and coffee shops,” she said.

The state government had previously implemented a ban on foreign cooks for all hawker centres and food courts belonging to MBPP.

The ban was introduced in 2014 and implemented since 2016.

It only applies to 13 types of local hawker food, namely, nasi lemak, asam laksa, pasembor, mee sotong, char koay teow, koay teow soup, Hokkien mee, curry mee, wan tan mee, loh bak, chee cheong fun, char koay kak and oh chien.

Tan stressed that the ban will not affect cafes, restaurants, hotels and franchises offering the same types of hawker food in their menus.

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/07/17/penang-ban-on-foreign-cooks-for-13-types-of-local-hawker-food-to-be-enforced-next-year/144019