On April 1 this year, 97 wine stores and bars were closed by the district administration in Shillong. This follows their failure to comply with the Meghalaya government’s amended rule 183 of the Meghalaya Excise Act of September 2015, which clearly prohibits issuing of licences to wine stores in areas within 200 metres from places of worship, educational institutions and hospitals.

It also prohibits location of wine stores within 100 metres from the middle point of national or state highways. This act was amended in September last year and wine store owners were given a timeframe of six months to comply with the amended law and to relocate their businesses.

Earlier, the act had only stipulated that wine stores be located at a “reasonable” distance from the above institutions. The amended act spelt out the finer points of the reasonable distance. The wine store owners are naturally peeved by this order which they consider highly arbitrary since they were not consulted.

The Wine Dealers’ Association took their grievance to Meghalaya High Court stating that many of them had opened shop much before the schools/religious places and hospitals had come up. They argued that Mahari’s was opened way back in 1948, Regetta in 1972 and Shillong Wine Stores in 1941.

They also pointed out that permission for some wine stores were still given after the act was amended. Further their contention is that Shillong is a hill station with a radius of 10km only, hence a distance of 200 metres spanning to the north, south, east and west is an unfair imposition considering the way the town, which has now grown into a city, is located. The high court upheld the state government’s amended rule and refused to stay the same.

Wine woes

Meghalaya has 39 bonded warehouses and over 600 wine shops, of which at least 314 are affected by the notification. In Shillong, out of 107 wine stores, only 10 were unaffected by the notification. These are doing brisk business. The state government claims it was only following the Supreme Court advisory that banned sale of liquor along national highways following the recommendations from the apex court-appointed committee on road safety. The Supreme Court has not issued any directive on the distance to be maintained from educational institutions, religious places and hospitals is concerned. The wine store owners feel this is an overreach by the state government which has come up with an order which defies reasonableness. Also, the Supreme Court advisory had stated that wine store owners should be consulted as they are the main stakeholders, but the government of Meghalaya never consulted them before coming out with the notification last year.

The wine store owners said they sought a meeting with the chief minister but were denied an audience. Incidentally, the chief minister’s brother Zenith Sangma is the excise minister of Meghalaya. Their meeting with the excise officials was of no use since the decision was taken at the level of the cabinet. Interestingly, as per the Wine Dealers and Welfare Association, the revenue accruing to the government from excise duties and VAT is to the tune of Rs 400 crore annually. That apart, the liquor trade has created a scope for a livelihood for several hundred workers. They are now without work.

Shillong city is a bit of a puzzle. Though the state now has the Shillong bypass and commercial vehicles don’t actually traverse though the city, parts of Police Bazar and even Motphran and Garikhana are still considered as a part of National Highway 40. The Orissa Excise Act, while defining a national highway, says, “Whenever a bypass is constructed, the portion of the national highway which has been replaced by the bypass may not be considered a national highway as far as the excise shops are concerned. They should be treated as city roads. The government of Meghalaya is yet to denotify the roads passing through the middle of the city as non-national highways.

Bar on bar

In the states of Assam, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, among others, wine stores located in municipal areas were exempted from closure and only those stores located within a distance of 50 metres from any hospital, educational institution and place of worship, were asked to relocate. In fact 50 metres is a reasonable distance since most others states are following this criterion. So one wonders what is driving the agenda of the government. If this is a social agenda, then can the government control bootlegging, which is now a flourishing trade?

A wine store owner said that while it is easy to speak of relocating their stores, the actual process can be harrowing. It means having to find a space which will invariably be located within a particular Dorbar Shnong. They will have to go through the rigmarole of layer upon layer of permission seeking and pay money under the table for those permissions to be cleared. The wine store dealers had even appealed to the government not to implement the amended notification with retrospective effect, but to only apply it with respect to new stores but the government has been adamant.

Wielding clout

Meanwhile, tourists visiting Shillong now question the logic of having a hotel without a bar to serve then a drink in the evening. All hotels with bar licenc#es have since stopped serving liquor barring The Shillong Club and the government-run Hotel Pinewood. What is amusing to many is how The Shillong Club is exempted from the recent excise notification.

The Club gate is clearly within 200 metres of Police Bazar Presbyterian Church. Is it because those with clout, including powerful politicians and bureaucrats, are members of the Club and therefore meddling with it could even impact the stability of the government itself? Shillong is losing its brand name of being a cool hill station with a liberal social space where the youth population who work hard and party hard can indulge themselves during the weekends.

Now that tag is fast becoming passé. True, they can buy liquor from those stores in the periphery of Shillong and turn their car into a bar but is that not more of a public nuisance?

The youths of Meghalaya have over time learnt social graces that include# social drinking.

And if people believe that locating liquor shops away from some critical spaces is going to deprive the habitual tippler of his quota of drinks, then they are naïve.

Hidden agenda?

Many wonder if there is a hidden agenda behind the mended excise rule number 183. Meghalaya chief minister, Mukul Sangma, is, however, adamant about the need for such a rule because, he says, other areas beyond the immediate city limits also need to grow.

He said, “Our people have a habit of locating every commercial establishment right next to the main road and thereby causing a traffic jam. We should learn that other areas beyond the present city limits can also be attractive ventures.”

But as of now, while the wine stores are licking their wounds, Shillongites are suffering from parched throats while those 10 wine stores that are open are making a killing. Everyday there is a long queue in front of these stores.

Something’s not quite adding up here.

(This appeared in The Telegraph on April 17, 2016. The writer can be contacted at patricia.mukhim@gmail.com)