There was something different about the shelf at the back of a mini-market in Setiabudi, South Jakarta last Monday. The brown, three-level shelves were filled with bags of chips. Five days earlier, the wooden shelving held beer bottles.

The female cashier on duty that night said the shelf contents were replaced the previous Wednesday, in the wake of a ban on the sale of alcoholic drinks by small retailers. The prohibition in the Ministry of Trad