Stability certificate puts pub owners on shaky ground

Occupancy and structural stability certificates made mandatory for pubs and bars is a welcome move, on paper. In practice, however, the process is fraught with delays and corruption. Why wait all these years to demand paperwork that needs to be produced by the owner of the building? What happens if it can’t be done? Pub and bar owners dread the days ahead, for few buildings conform to BBMP-approved building plans. It will mean a loss of revenue from the cash-rich excise department, which gave the goverment Rs 19 crore in tax in 2017. Will the industry and its many employees not be at the mercy of the all-powerful, largely corrupt babus, ask Chandrashekar G and Nikhil Gangadhar

Pub and bar owners confess to being in a shambles after the Karnataka High Court ruling on Monday. The ruling says that owners need to submit their occupancy certificates for pubs and bars established after 1977 and a stability certificate for those set up pre 1977. This has to be done within 30 days. Several owners are worried about the major losses they will have to suffer, with sums running into several crores of rupees.

Ashok Sadhwani is an icon of the local tippler scene, the first person to start a pub in the city. The problem, he explains, is that there is little clarity surrounding the rules. “The rules need to be understood but the situation is such a mess at the moment. We have spent much money to set up our businesses and rules like these will hamper us.” The High Court has emphasised that the occupancy and stability certificates need to be provided by all establishments that have live music and a failure to do so will result in the business being shut down. “Why couldn’t the government ask for these documents when we were in the process of setting up. Now, it’s a major problem but we have to find ways to work around it.” Sadhwani adds that pub and bar owners will have to seek the BBMP’s help with certificates. “If they do not cooperate, we will go back to the High Court and say that we are unable to provide the certificates as we don’t have the required help.”

Another owner of a well-known pub located in the central business district, said, on condition of anonymity, “It is unfair to conjure up all these rules now. What were these officials doing when we set up our business? If they had asked for documents then, we could have asked building owners and others concerned to furnish them. Now if a building owner doesn’t have the required certificate, we may have to shut down. There is no clarity on anything other than the fact that we need to provide the certificate. These rules should have been established when the pub culture in the city was still nascent.”

“We are already suffering losses in the business and now this has made our future bleak too. We have no idea what awaits us. Meetings are being held with the Association of Pubs and Bars although we are still to decide the next course of action. If we fail to provide documents in a month, we cannot have music played at the venue, whether it is live or recorded,” he added. The source also said that music is an integral part of pub culture and restrictions on it defeat the purpose entirely. “Instead of this, they should provide us with guidelines that can help curb noise pollution and tackle the other problems too.”