22 October 2016
Sidi Mohammed
Doha - Shops are not permitted to stick advertisements in their premises without a permission from the Ministry of Municipality and Environment.

The rule applies to vehicles as well and those violating this rule will face fines up to QR 10,000, a senior official has said.

A number of small shop owners recently started visiting the Technical Affairs Department at the Doha Municipality seeking permits for sticker advertisements, after some of them faced hefty fines imposed by the Public Monitoring Department at Central Market.

The permits are issued by the Technical Affairs Department but the Public Monitoring Department is responsible for monitoring.

The latter has been conducting inspection campaigns in the past weeks and caught a number of shops without permits for ads.

“We have noticed recently more people coming to take ad permits for their shops after they were booked for violation,” Abdullah Ibrahim Al Sada, Technical Affairs Department Director told The Peninsula.

“The fee for permits for temporary ads is only QR20 per metre in Doha area and QR10 per metre in other areas, while the annual fee for such permits is QR200. It does not take more than 15 minutes to process a permit. I don’t know why they are violating the law,” he added.

He said some shops are violating the rule for various reasons — ignorance about the law, to avoid fees, or failure to produce the required documents.

To be issued an ad permit, the requirements include the commercial permit, commercial registration, ad picture and a duly filled ad application.

In the case of promotional ads, approval from the Ministry of Economy and Commerce is needed.

“The types of ads most people are applying for are sticker ads for shops and vehicles, and monthly we are receiving between 1,000 to 1,500 such applications,” said Abdullah Ibrahim Al Sada, adding, “from August 21 to September 22 we issued 1,737 permits, of which 235 were for vehicle stickers and 242 for shops, among others.”

Common violations people commit in this respect are the lack of commitment to space and a failure to use Arabic language in the ads. Arabic should be the main language in ads although it is allowed to add another language, he said.

Some shopkeepers said they  were forced to pay fines up to QR10,000 for displaying ads in their premises (mostly on walls and glass doors) without a permit.

“The problem is that sometimes our papers are not completed and processing of ad permit takes time. Sometimes we just display the ad for several hours then we remove it,” said a shopkeeper.

© The Peninsula 2016