PANJIM: After more than five months, taverns, bars and also the bars attached to restaurants reopened for dine-in service from Tuesday with seating capacity capped at 50 per cent and maintaining social distancing norms.
While the Unlock 4 guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) did bring relief to bar owners in Goa; the response on day-1 of their business was however not up to the mark. Most of the bar operators cited several reasons for a below average business.
“It is a welcome decision of the government since we have been out of business for over five months but I haven’t resumed operations today (September 1) as my entire staff is at their natives. Moreover implementing safety norms as directed by the Centre is not quick work. Minimum one week notice was enough to prepare ourselves for resuming serving liquor to customers on premises,” a noted Panjim-based restaurant and bar owner told Herald requesting anonymity.
Another pub co-owner, also requesting anonymity, maintained that an advance notice would have helped his management team chalk out plans for resuming operations.
“Arrangements to ensure social distancing, and placing sanitiser with stands as well as putting in place other safety norms are not an easy task. Most importantly, liquor stock is not readily available with many of us. Therefore, some of us decided to delay re-opening our premises till every bit is set,” he said.
The taverns and bars attached with restaurants have begun placing orders with liquor distributors to make stock available for their customers. One of them said that stock of beer has already crossed expiry date while its counters have only hard liquors.
On the other hand, some premises which re-opened their business did not find good inflow of customers. “People are still scared to walk-in. It was the same when restaurants re-opened for dine-in. Let’s hope that in the coming days, the response is good,” President of the All Goa Bar & Restaurant Association Michael Carrasco said while speaking to Herald.
He too admitted that a few bars attached to restaurants and taverns did not resume operations on Tuesday due to lack of staff and liquor stock. “People are not aware that bars are open,” Carrasco added.
Herald also spoke to the President of All Goa Liquor Traders Association Dataprasad Naik who said they have begun receiving orders for liquor stock. “Many bar owners have placed orders for liquor with the distributors. We have recorded a slight increase in sales but the actual effect will be known after eight days,” he said.
Naik is hopeful that with the resumption of bars, tourism will bounce back and ‘good quality’ restaurants and bars will be thrown open for the people.
“We are also expecting good number of tourists to come to Goa. So it is important for every Goan in any sector to ensure social distancing, wearing of face masks and use of hand sanitiser/ hand wash at its respective premises. We can contain the spread of the virus and improve the economy of the State and country,” he said.
The liquor industry has meanwhile appealed to the government to relax license fees for a period of five months in the next financial years. “The liquor outlets did not face a long closure like the bar operators. Since the 12 months license fee for the current year is already paid to the Excise department, we request the government and the Excise department to not collect fees of five months for the next financial year. It will be a huge relief to the bar owners,” Naik said.
The association has also urged the government to streamline Excise Duties for the benefit of the State exchequer, liquor dealers as well as customers.
