Thank God. The Sari Club will NOT be replaced with yet another disco nightclub, but hopefully will remain a place of remembrance with an appropriate space and memorial. Some type of business should be allowed on the backside of this lot, but it shouldn't be anything insulting to the Aussies and Balinese who lost their lives to the Islamic fundamentalist hated of days gone by.
Badung regency has rejected an application by a local businessman to build a nightspot on the site of the bombed Sari Club in Legian, saying the area must be used for humanitarian purposes, such as a proposed peace park. The decision paves the way for the West Australian-based Bali Peace Park Association to forge ahead with plans to turn the site in the busy tourist strip into a garden of reflection.
In August it was revealed that businessman Kadek Wiranatha had bought and fully paid for a 30-year lease on the land, from its Jakarta-based owner, and planned to construct a restaurant and bar at the location, with construction planned to start before the end of this year.
The site, where some preparatory works for building have already been done, is now being used as a car park. Previously it had been used only as an informal motorbike parking lot. On Thursday Badung Regent AA Gede Agung announced that permission would not be granted to build a commercial complex on the site. He made the announcement at a ceremony at the Australian Consulate-General in Denpasar held to mark the anniversary of the second Bali bombings, on October 1, 2005.
“There was an application for development of the land at the former Sari Club, but a [building] permit has not been issued and therefore I ordered that any building work be stopped,” he said.
Twin bombings of Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club on October 12, 2002, killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. The regent said he supported the construction of a Bali Peace Park “out of respect for the human tragedy that happened at that place.”
Contacted by The Bali Times on Friday, Wiranatha’s lawyer and business partner, Oka Semadi, said he could not comment directly on the news and was “seeking clarification from the regent’s office.” Regent Agung said it would take about three months for negotiations to conclude regarding the land ownership.
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