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
Totally comdemenable situatation, at Kottara chawki Criminal Killer from {Kadapu} kerala Uppala and Kunjuttur, all very young boys ,here in natakel Sangi Criminal Jihadi came from Sullia, you people understand all these safroon criminal leaders understand their utterely defetables forth comming election, Yeddianna and shobakka behind all these, no worries we will produce more and mor, Criminilising the holy land of Hindustan they have t have to pay for ever.
Jai Hoo Siddanna
Jai hoo Raianna.
Dear Bro...
Being a Muslim, lets not drag the Issue much. Yes we all agree it is a criminal act of couple of men who want to disturb the peace in society. We as muslims, try our best to teach them islamic way of handling it. Do u know the Hadees of where a Yahudi is given shelter in the mosque by Rasool ( S.A. ) and the next day morning, he urinated in Masjid and went. But our Rasool S.A. asked sahaba to clean the floor by pouring water on them and asked not to harm the yahudi who urinated there. Lets be the followers of this Great Rasool and lets not make fitna in the society just becoz few are doing some crime.
The place called SULIA is the second HQ of criminal RSS. Dept must trap thier all telecom round the clock and smash this evil from the base. Due to last weeks criminal goonda giri TWO innocents lost their life and whole Mangloreans still with that pain. Beside these desh drohi still stick with their anti communal activity. Now they will create more and more by sponsored goonda giri. SInce the State Govt and our Police Dept are with thier strict action these criminals never succeed much. Public must catch and puch from top to bottom first and hand over to police.
The main culprits behind this are our elected TWO criminal back ground politicians.
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