Bengaluru: Around 190 pubs and bars on Mahatma Gandhi Road, Church Street and Brigade Road are set to bring down shutters if the state government fails to pressurize the Central Government to denotify national highways in Bengaluru city limits.
The excise department formally issued notices on June 22 to all the bars and pubs in deference to a Supreme Court order that bans the sale of alcohol within 500 metres vicinity of state and national highways. These bars and pubs are told to stop selling alcoholic beverages from the midnight of June 30.
Though majority of the owners are expecting Karnataka government to come to their rescue, some of them have stopped buying stocks from the bulk suppliers. “The state government has already forwarded the request to denotify national highways that pass-through city corporations. We are waiting for a positive response from the Central Government. We are worried about the issue being politicized since no response received from the Centre even after two weeks of making such request,’’ Karnataka State Hotels’ Association General Secretary Madhukar M Shetty said.
He said the state government has already sent a request to the Centre seeking the denotification of 77.6 km of national highways cutting through Bengaluru city.
According to the owners of bars and pubs on MG Road, Church Street and Brigade Road, corporates have stopped booking halls to organize parties and get together functions at their bars and pubs in the CBD area. “Three functions were cancelled due to the closure order. These functions were supposed to be held in the first week of July,’’ an owner of the bar said on a condition of anonymity.
Around two weeks ago, the state government wrote to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), recommending a set of roads to be taken off the national highways list. “As of now, we have Rs 1 lakh worth of inventory at our outlet. We do not know what to do with such inventory. We are told that Excise Department officials will lock the storeroom and put their seal on it. We are mulling to shift one of the three outlets from here to BTM Layout,’’ Pecos manager M Srinivas Gowda said.
According to reliable sources, National Highways (NH) 44, 75, 209, 275, 4 and 7 branches out in six directions from the General Post Office in the CDB area.
