CALANGUTE: Mounting pressure on dance bars in Calangute, residents and activists on Friday night once again protested by holding an ‘awareness drive’ against these places, while panchayat members also visited the nightspots.
Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira said they had issued show cause notices to some of the ‘dance bars’ on Thursday after they found some illegalities during a site inspection a few days ago, and claimed that four of the nightspots have shut down on their own initiative following an appeal by the panchayat.
“Today we’ve gone peacefully and asked them to close down. Most have closed on their own. A large number of youth were with us,” Sequeira said.
However, residents and activists claimed all the 16 so-called dance bars which have been identified as hotspots of illegal activities in Calangute were still open when they went around on their ‘awareness drive’ late on Friday night.
“We’ve called the sarpanch to show him what’s going on,” Nitesh Chodankar, one of the activists, told mediapersons.
“These places are going on despite our protests. It seems they have godfathers to protect them; without godfathers, nothing goes on. They all have taken our warnings lightly. Today’s peaceful drive is awareness to tell the dance bars and touts to close down. Next time people will act to close them down. Enough is enough,” Chodankar said. “This drive will continue till they shut down,” he added.
