Booze on! Karnataka government issues 3 months notice to pubs to move shop

Bengaluru: In a major reprieve for pubs and bars facing closure and loss of revenue over being located within 500 m of a national highway, the state government has given pubs and restaurant-bar owners within the CBD, three months to relocate.

Mr Ashish Kothare, President of the Association of Pubs, Restaurants, Bars & Hotels, Bengaluru said, “As of now, the plan to close the pubs and bars on July 1 has been dropped and it will close only on October 1," adding that they were waiting to see what would happen with cases against the ban. "The state government is fighting a case in Delhi and there is also a representation of the government at the Supreme Court,” Mr. Kothare said.

The many pubs that had given the IT capital its moniker of "Pub City', will however not follow Delhi as had been the speculation earlier in the day, where, developers of pubs and bars changed their entrances, making a motorable distance of more than 500 metres in order to move the establishments out of the Supreme Court’s purview.

Barring a pub inside a major five star facility, none of the other pubs would be able to do that.