Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Balikpapan – The city of Balikpapan is gearing up for a vice crackdown involving enforcement of alcohol restrictions, a moratorium on new karaoke bars and spas in the works, and plans to close down the city's legalized prostitution area.

"Mayor Rizal Effendi will soon issue a moratorium on [new] entertainment establishments such as karaoke bars, spas and others," Sudirman Djayaleksana, a spokesman for the city administration, said on Wednesday. "A mayoral decree on the moratorium is currently being drafted," he added.

Under a local regulation, alcoholic beverages are only allowed to be sold in star-rated hotels, but Sudirman said alcohol had been discovered in various non-hotel nightspots during recent raids by the city's public order agency, or Satpol PP.

Sudirman also added that the city now hosted an overabundance of entertainment establishments, with numbers reaching into the hundreds. The moratorium on new establishments, he said, was linked to plans to close down Lembah Harapan Baru, also known as Lokalisasi KM 17, a legalized prostitution zone in the city.

Authorities are hoping that the moratorium will discourage sex workers from entering illegal prostitution businesses elsewhere in the city after the area is shut down for good.

"The moratorium is to anticipate them finding new opportunities that will eventually bring them back to their old line of work," he said.

"It is for that reason that the Satpol PP regularly conduct raids in every existing nightspot. [As for] alcoholic beverages, we are doing everything that we can to stop them from circulating in illegal places."