Bar, bar...na dekho!

Jasmine Singh

A fresh tweet from Suhel Seth, well-known author, sums up quite a bit of what is happening on the ‘daaru ban’ front. Suhel tweets, “From Atithi Dev Bhavo to Atithi Dry Raho. Wah!” Exactly! So, now this could be the new welcome song that you can sing to your friends or relatives visiting you in Chandigarh. In fact, you can coin one for yourself, Ek glassy do glassy, tin glassy chaar....dasso kithey hai beer bar!

While you get creative on this front, how about taking out a moment to see how the Supreme Court’s order on banning liquor vends alongside national and state highway is coming through with the city hotel and restaurant owners, who have been affected by this new rule. 

Supreme Court’s guideline against serving liquor near highways comes into effect on Saturday. The rule hits the hotel industry of the city badly, as majority of hotels and restaurants are situated alongside the NH 21 and the state highway, Madhya Marg. Also, the department will not renew licenses of over 35 hotels situated alongside roads falling within 500 metres of the highway to serve liquor from April 1.

Even though the Administration has decided to allow all liquor vends to continue till April 6, this sounds like a very low situation for hotels and restaurant owners. This is how they feel. 

Shut shop

This new order will completely shut down the food and beverage industry.  All the parties in my banquet are cancelled for the entire next month. What will happen to my restaurant and lounge? How will I provide for the salary of my staff? This will simply mean that I have to ask almost 150 people from my staff to leave, when in my entire time, I haven’t shunted out a single person till date. But more than anything, I want to ask the authorities, how are they calculating the distance from the highway to the hotel entry point because my hotel is 710 metres from the highway! The entire hospitality industry is just gone. 

Ginny Chawla, managing director,  The Altius

Not the answer  

More than 70 per cent of our business runs on liquor; this new law is not only going to affect the hotel and restaurant owners, but also the staff that works here. Where will these people go? Now, what is the point of going out, and, now one can just sit home, have food and drinks at home only! We cannot create responsible citizens by imposing ban; awareness should have been an answer to this. 

Akshay Duggal, managing 

director, OOTT, Kharar 

What a setback 

Who are the worst hit from this...the bartenders, deejays, bouncers...where will they go? For night clubs, 90 per cent business comes from liquor, now what? I also double up as an artist programmer for the place; only today, I had to cancel all the 20-30 bands that I had booked for the month of April. I don’t see any sense in this decision, if someone has to drink and drive, he will, eventually. He might just get drunk and hit the highway. What do you do then? I wonder who is going to generate employment for those who will be losing jobs.

Sameer Sandhu, resident deejay and artist programmer, F Bar

A massive blow 

There is just one way of looking at it - the hospitality industry is doomed. Apart from, of course, the business of hotel owners being affected, what will happen to the staff that we unwillingly would have to waive off? How will the restaurant or hotel owners provide salaries for these people? And what will happen to those who are paying rent for the space?

Ankit Gupta, president, Chandigarh 

Hospitality Association  

No fizz, anymore

For fine-dining restaurants places it could still be okay, but what happens to night clubs, pubs and microbreweries? Their has been a 100 per cent affect on our business. Today, we had just one walk in. Also, this will leave many people unemployed. 

Pawan Kumar, The Great Bear-26 

[email protected])