QUEZON City is requiring business establishments with foreign names and character signages to have local translations on them, too.
Mayor Herbert Bautista approved City Ordinance 2604 of 2017, compelling businesses with foreign names or characters in their in-premise signboards to have accompanying English or local dialect translations.
“There is a need for accompanying translations and/or its wordings in English, the meaning of the foreign language business names in the signboards and/or signages of the establishments in Quezon City for easy identification and information on the nature of businesses,” the measure read.
District 5 Councilor Allan Butch Francisco authored the ordinance for the purpose of taxation and the identification of the nature of these different business establishments.
The city government noted 74 of these foreign establishments across QC’s six legislative districts, all owned and operated by foreign nationals, are already complying with this.
Restaurants, karaoke and sing-along bars, cocktail lounges, groceries and convenience stores, commercial buildings, hotels, inns and lodging houses are covered by the ordinance.
Bautista tasked Garry Domingo, Business Permits and Licensing Office chief, and Isagani Verzosa, Department of Building Official chief, to enforce the measure.
All affected business owners and operators have 60 days after the approval to comply with the ordinance.