Rock bottom!

Rock bottom!
There’s a big gap between the perceived image of Bangalore and the sorry reality of the nightlife here. Only, now, even the rest of the world knows
The Times of India

FLASHBACK
It’s dead, non-existent, gone kaput. Bangalore’s once celebrated night life, that is. It has been so for some time now. First, the 11.30 pm curfew, with lathi-wielding policemen banging their sticks on tables in the most stylish clubs, making sure clubbers vamoosed at the appointed hour. How does a city that works till well after 8 pm grab any night time fun before 11.30 pm?

End-June another crackdown. While everyone thought the orders were only for dance bars to shut shop, party-goers in July were stunned to find ‘No-Dancing’ signs greeting them at the dance floors at their clubs.

PARTY PEOPLE PROTEST

Club owners cried themselves hoarse; visitors to the city were shocked that the night ended long before midnight; DJs started looking elsewhere for work. The way the police went about the closing received a lot of flak too. “On one occasion we had policemen walking the ramp,” complained Prasad Bidapa. “They have no right to interrupt a fashion show. It was also way before 11 pm when they stormed in and drove everyone away,” he said.

News of Bangalore’s dying night life reached the international media, too.

NO GO

The police sat unmoved. “Ask the excise department,” they said. “We’re working on it,” the excise department offered.

Then came the Supreme Court verdict allowing dance bars to be open. Club owners jumped. “Tangentially, we thought we’d be allowed to stay open, but no go,” they lamented.

THEY SAID IT

They want us to get an amusement licence if we are to have dancing. For this we are required to get permits from the fire department, BESCOM and other civic agencies; we are are expected to have multiple entry and exit points, but the excise rule says that we have to have only one entry and exit point, if we are to serve liquor.

RAJANNA, CLUB OWNER

We are being equated with dance bars and that’s not fair. I even overheard a policeman say ‘There also they dance, here also they dance; clubs are worse, because here men and women dance.’ We can’t have this attitude. Bangalore has matured as a city and clubbing has nothing negative attached to it. People come here to lounge and have conversation. Nothing untoward happens anywhere on the dance floor.

Deep Biswas, lounge bar owner

This is ridiculous. You expect a city like Bangalore to be more mature about handling a situation like this. I come to the city even though the mills I deal with are in another. I transact all businesses here because I used to like the decent night life here.

MARVIN G, GERMAN BUSINESSMAN

People in London asked me about the the no-dancing and pub closure rules in Bangalore. Tsk, tsk, is what they say.

IVAN, MUSIC MAN
PARTY PEOPLE-SPEAK
* We don’t know what the real reason for the close down is. If it’s to keep crime rates down, it’s certainly a big failure. Murders of the worst kind still happen.

COP THIS

Police Commissioner Ajai Kumar Singh on deadline extensions for pubs and bars (including the night of 31st): I don’t have the authority to extend the closure hour. It is the excise department which has that power. If they extend it by two hours, we will go by it.

Excise commissioner DN Nayak (at the time of going to press): We may extend deadline only for the 31st night. But the matter is still under deliberation. edison.thomas@timesgroup.com