Hyderabad to open bars, pubs, amidst scarcity of workers

Hyderabad: All bars and pubs in Hyderabad city are expected to be opened from Monday as the Telangana government is planning to apply the Central guidelines for restaurants and hotels. However, scarcity of skilled workers will be a big hurdle for their reopening. The excise and prohibition department has hinted to the bars and hoteliers’ industry to this effect and called for a meeting on Sunday.

The owners of bars and pubs are making frantic calls to get back the migrant labourers who were with them till now, from Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Most of these workers are trained cooks, stewards and waiters. The managements are offering them flight tickets and salary advances to get them back at the earliest. There are about 200 pubs and 800 bars and a score of star hotels where liquor is supplied for dining in services. All these establishments are shut since 22 March, the Janata curfew day, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic triggered lockdown. This is one capital intensive industry whose representatives have been seeking governmental help to tide over their burgeoning losses.

However, the government is yet to take a decision on allowing opening of member clubs—where city’s elite meet for wining, dining and recreational purposes. “We are not treating these clubs as commercial activity and will be treated differently when it comes to enforcing social distancing norms. The matter will be decided at the highest level (CM),” said an official from the excise department.

Most of the bars with attached restaurants and pubs have paid annual licence fee from Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore and are steeped in huge losses due to the shutdown for about 80 days. A delegation of this business has made a representation to the government either to allow them to open or refund their license fee for the corresponding period to tide over the losses.

The government opted for the second. Initially, there appeared some confusion over the Centre’s guidelines over Unlock-1.0 announced on 31 May, which did not mention the bars and pubs, though restaurants were permitted. As already, the sale of liquor through retail (wine) shops was allowed from 7 May, Telangana’s excise department has decided to apply the norms to bars and pubs too. Incidentally, most of the restaurants also have bar licences for serving liquor to customers. If a restaurant is allowed to resume dining services, the same can be extended to liquor serving too, explained a senior excise official. Similarly, standalone bars, too, have permission to serve food, so the definition of bars and restaurants can be broadly the same, he said. However, there are some reservations from the police department and some resistance is expected from womenfolk who view bars as detrimental to safety of men prone to alcoholism.