Liquor vends along highways in Karnataka to shut shop from tom

Hundreds of liquor vends here and elsewhere in Karnataka along highways will cease to function from tomorrow in line with the Supreme Court's ban on sale of liquor along highways.
Though the apex court ban on sale of liquor within 500 metres of highways came into force on April 1 in most parts of the country, in Karnataka it will be implemented from tomorrow as the Excise Year of the state begins from July.
License of liquor shops in the state will expire tonight as Karnataka excise year is from July 1 to June 30. Licences of shops along national and statehighways will not be renewed, officials said.

With four major national highways criss crossing Bengaluru, high-end pubs and bars in the city's central business district like M G Road, Brigade Road and upmarket Indiranagar and Koramangala will be the worst hit.
According to records, Old Madras Road, MG Road and Hosur Road in the heart of the city, where high-end pubs and bars are located, have been tagged as highways, but they are not used as such and are being maintained by the city civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
According to the officials, about 700 establishments fall under the 94-km stretch of NH and its service roads passing through the city, with majority of them located in east and south zone.

Some prominent clubs, pubs, restaurants and five star hotels in the city would come under the ban.

Earlier, following the Supreme Court order the state governmenthad asked the Centre to denotify about 858 km highways passingthrough the limits of urban local bodies.
The state has also denotified parts of the statehighways in a bid to save vends functioning along it.
It looked like there was need for common policy on the matter with the Centre receiving similar representations from other states, but it wouldtake time, a state government official said.
Karnataka Wine Merchants' Association State Secretary Honnagiri Gowda said liquor shops along national and state highways will have to shut from tomorrow as their licenses will end and will not be renewed.

"We feel state governmentdelayed a bit in taking up with Union government on the NHthing, while in the case of state highways, it has onlydenotified stretch passing through municipal limits, theyshould have done at other places also," he told PTI.
A total of around 6,000 liquor shops come within the radius of 500 metres along the highways in the state.