Pub closing hours set to be extended

Pub closing hours set to be extended
By Bala Chauhan,DH News Service,Bangalore:
The Excise department is likely to send a proposal to the government on Wednesday on the extension of timing of pubs and bars in the City from the present 11:30 pm to 1:00 am

The Excise department is likely to send a proposal to the government on Wednesday on the extension of timing of pubs and bars in the City from the present 11:30 pm to 1:00 am. The Excise Commissioner reportedly had a meeting with some senior officers and discussed the proposal for the extension of timing.

“We only need to change the licence condition with the prior permission of the government. The relaxation of the deadline is aimed at the foreign tourists in the City and the IT sector which has a huge number of expatriates working here. Now that the Home Department has okayed the extension of deadline, we only need to send proposal to the government for permission,” said an official source.

The move to extend the “draconian and archaic” deadline was initiated by Tourism Department, which sent a plea to the Home Department asking to relax pub and bar timings.

“The Tourism Department asked us for our opinion on the extension of the timing. I sent them a reply saying that we don’t have any objection to it. The logistics have to be worked out by the Excise and police departments,” said Additional Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary, Vatsala Vatsa.

The Excise licences will have to be renewed and in all probability, the licencees may have to pay extra because 12 midnight to 1 am is counted as another day under the Excise licence conditions for occasional licence.
“These are policy matters, which the government needs to take a decision on. They may do it now or wait till the Budget,” said an Excise officer.

Celebrating the “victory” are the pubs and bars, which claim that finally Bangalore will get back its cosmopolitan flavour thanks to these departments.

“In the 1990s the deadline was 10:30pm. It was extended to 11.30pm but it’s been a long time since they relaxed it further,” said a pub owner.

Last year , the licence fee went up from Rs 3.4 lakh to around Rs 7 lakh for pubs and bars (CL9).
“We were told that the timings will be relaxed and the hike in fee will be compensated. Thank God, it’s happened now,” said another club owner.

Waiting for signal
“We are waiting for the Excise Commissioner to give us a green signal. We already have the approval from the Home department,” he added.