Bengaluru, May 4: Booze lovers ushered in the resumption of liquor sales in a spirited fashion in Karnataka onMonday thronging stores hours before shutters went up at severalplaces and made no secret of their celebratory mood.
At some places, they flocked liquor shops even before day-break and performed "special prayers" with flowers, coconuts,incense sticks, camphor and crackers in front of the stores.
Liquor outlets had been shut in the State from March 25 following the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Excise revenue loss during the period was about Rs 2,500 crore, according to government sources.
About 4,500 standalone liquor outlets (CL-2 and CL- 11licence holders), which comprise wine stores and those owned bystate-run Mysore Sales International Limited, outside containmentzones were allowed to be opened from Monday from 9 am to 7 pm withsome restrictions.
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These include customers compulsorily wearing of facemasks andmaintaining social distancing with not more than five people inside liquor shops.
Many customers were indeed well-prepared.
At many places, they came with umbrella, raincoat, newspapers and books and queued up as early as 3 am.
At a liquor shop in Salegame Road in Hassan, the tipplers lit the traditional lamp and incense sticks, performed 'aarati'with camphor and decorated the store with the garland of flowers.
With folded hands, they all performed 'special prayers'.
In Mandya, the tipplers queued up before Martaanda liquor shop before dawn.
An hour before the sales were to resume, a few people burst crackers in celebration.
Some tipplers in Belagavi were more "enterprising."
They wentto a liquor store on Sunday night itself, performed special prayersand placed their "representatives" in the form of slippers, bags and stones in the "social distancing boxes" they themselves had drawn sothat they don't have to stand in queue in the morning.
An elderly woman Dakamma was the centre of attraction in Shivamogga.
The bent body did not bend the determination of this spirited lady, claimed to be 96-year-old, who was heard saying "liquor is goodfor health."
At the taluk headquarters town of Brahmavara in the coastal Udupi district, the queue of the booze lovers was reported to be almost half-a-kilometre.
Long queues were seen at liquor stores at Mariyappana Palya and K R Puram, among others, in Bengaluru.
The store managers too were no less cautious while dealing with customers in the COVID era.
They let the customers enter after spraying sanitisers in their hands, and allowed only those who hadworn masks and maintained social distancing.
To maintain law and order, authorities had deployed policemen in good numbers at these stores and they were seen on duty ensuring that customers maintained social distancing.
Comments
Your agenda in all election is " We will build Ram Mandir" if we elected to assembly. Now Central is with BJP hand, UP is with BJP hand then what is the issue? Why again and again saying we will build Ram Mandir - Ram Mandir every now and then. Road is free and why dont you take steps to build the temple and finish the issue?
Dear Non Muslim brothers and sisters, believe it or not - These so called politicians will never build Ram Mandir or whatsoever. This is the main Muddah for their election campain. Actually we the voters are fool and fighting each other (Hindu & Muslim), killing , looting innocents etc etc. - Finally who will benefit? These politicians and who is the looser - WE
Dear All - Please think about the development of our state, country and cast your valuable vote to the right candidate who may contribute to the development of our state/country. In this era Mandir-Masjid is not the issue - Issue is development, education, job, food etc etc.
The problem is BALATKARI JANWAR PATRY (BJP), Modi and Amit shah style of running the government on Hitler style has already filled the gandu rashtra people with poison in their brains to send Muslims out of India. This is the real problem. Gandus want their gandu rashtra at any cost now. Arab Muslims ruled India for 900 years and enriched the country with coffee, silk etc. Then British came and looted the country. Then these BJP and RSS are gifted with the divide and rule formula from British. They are now just following the same old formula to eat up whatever is left in the country. All this making hindu rashtra etc is a drama.
Comparing to Japan and other countries India is quite behind, because their aim is development, whereas our aim is Mandir/Masjid and religion. If India continues the same theory, India will never develop. These politicians are taking India on wrong direction.
Tippu is dead , shivaji also is dead. Why not worry about poor people like us who are still alive? We have enough masjid to pray , Allah will accept our prayers from any masjid, plz dont worry about that. Kindly finish the ram mandir as soon as possible. After all this done, kindly focus on jobs, roads, farmers, water, food, social services etc. i hope this is very simple english so u and your like minded friends can understand.
Thanks
kachda chaddi,,
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