As the liquor stores remained closed on Monday, their employees loitered around talking to customers waiting eagerly for the vends to reopen.NEW DELHI: Delhi witnessed an unproclaimed dry day on Monday when all liquor stores closed down and hotels, clubs and bars refused to serve alcohol after their permit validity expired along with the excise policy on July 31. With the policy extended for a month, liquor shop and bars and clubs confirmed they will be able to operate normally Tuesday onwards. However, there could be a shortage of liquor in the city. Replenishing shop stocks and bringing back normalcy will take a couple of days. Only bars and hotels, which store liquor for longer periods, will have normal operations from Tuesday. Excise officials explained that the extension was approved as a transitory measure since all licences under the prevailing excise policy expired on July 31, 2022. The government has decided to revert to the old policy, under which government and private owners will sell alcohol. As the liquor stores remained closed on Monday, their employees loitered around talking to customers waiting eagerly for the vends to reopen. At a vend near ITO, a man said they had nothing to sell and had to wait for a couple of days to procure new stocks. The employees of these shops are a worried lot. Many have lost their jobs and more feared being unemployed. “Each shop has at least 10 workers and there are more employed for backend jobs. The government will hire its own people to run its liquor outlets from September 1. Where will we go?” asked a vend employee in Mayur Vihar. One shop owner, who was planning to withdraw from the business since the government was reverting to the old policy, said, “We are the worst sufferers because we are being forced to quit retail sales within months of investing huge amounts. A one month’s extension is no compensation for our losses. We rather shut shop now than operate for another month,” he said. Till July, there were 468 shops running in 23 zones. Government officials confirmed that at least three zones had written that they were not keen to continue. “There could be more zonal licensees who don’t want to continue and the number of shops might drop to below 400,” said an official. A restaurant owner blamed the government’s “flip-flop policy” for the loss of a day’s business. “If the government had problems with the way these shops were operating, at least the licences meant for hotels, clubs and bars could have been extended before the expiry of the policy. We suffered a major loss today,” said Sushil Bhagat, manager of a bar in west Delhi’s Patel Nagar. Around 1,000 hotels, clubs, bars and banquet halls held licences to serve alcohol. FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebookTwitterInstagramKOO APPYOUTUBE
