Hotels, recreation clubs move HC on liquor ban

A group of hotels and recreation clubs has moved the Madras High Court Bench here contending the recent Supreme Court ban on sale of liquor along highways will not apply to them as they only catered to their guests unlike the liquor outlets meant for general public.
When the batch of petitions filed by them came up for hearing today, Justice Nisha Banu posted the matter after a week and ordered the Tamil Nadu government to file a counter affidavit.
The hotels and clubs located in southern districts of Tamil Nadu submitted that the apex court had banned sale of liquor within 500 metres of national and state highways to prevent sale of liquor to drivers to check druken driving.

They claimed that the same principle could not be applied to hotels and recreation clubs where only members and guests were served liquor.
The counsel for the petitioners said unlike state-run liquor shops, recreation clubs do not sell liquor to public. Just because the road where a club was located had been declared as a highway, the members cannot be deprived of spending time there and consuming liquor, he said.
The counsel also said the state government had misconstrued the Supreme Court order.
Officials did not even care to verify whether the hotels were located within 500 metres of a highway before ordering them to stop serving liquor, he alleged.