350 bar owners will down shutters from today to protest 'frivolous' police crackdown and harassment following Home Minister R R Patil's reprimand u00a0 BAR owners are all set to pour cold water over your plans of cheering for Australia or Zimbabwe over a couple of beers with friends today. 350 bars across the city will down shutters for an indefinite period to protest alleged harassment by the police and excise department. <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2011/feb/bar12.jpg" border="5" /> Bar owners allege that the raids carried out are a form of harassment and that they were booked for fabricated cases The departments initiated a thorough crackdown on bars following a reprimand by Home Minister R R Patil, who hinted that they were lax on dance bars in the city (see box). AHAR (Indian Hotels and Restaurants Association) has threatened that 8,000 fine dining establishments will join the protest if bar owners' grievances are not addressed at the earliest. After the reprimand, police and excise officials raided 162 bars on Friday and arrested 300 people, including 122 women. More than 228 beer bars and 279 hotels, pubs, lodges were raided till yesterday and excise officials also demanded liquor permits from customers. Confirming the raids, an excise official said, "On Friday, we carried out a drive and found that most bars did not have permits to serve liquor and customers were being served without being asked for drinking permits, which is against the law." 'Police harassment' Bar owners, however, allege that the raids were a form of police harassment. "Several owners were booked for multiple fabricated cases. The police forced several establishments shut on Saturday even though the owner held the legal licence for an orchestra performance along with the order from the police department permitting four female and male artists to perform," grumbled Sudhakar Shetty, president, AHAR. Shetty added that bar owners will keep the shutters down till the cops do no stop the "frivolous" raids. "There are many fine dining restaurants who have had to face the music even though they do not have an orchestra. u00a0 This is unjust and if the police fail to stop, our 8,000 other members will also join the protest. We are going to approach the home department and excise department in this regard," he said. An irate Bharat Thakur, chairman of AHAR's orchestra bar sub-committee, said, "The cops are not concerned about the legality of the business.u00a0 They are simply shutting us down." He alleged that cops were also forcing bars to shut down earlier than the prescribed 1.30 am deadline. Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Dayal, however, was undeterred. "We will continue the raids. Strict action will be taken against any bar that is violating the norms." Left red-faced On Friday, after a TV channel did an expos ufffd on dance bars functioning in areas like Mahim, Kandivli and Goregaon, Patil summoned Dayal and asked about the action taken by the police against them. The ban on dance bars came into force in 2005.

350 bar owners will down shutters from today to protest 'frivolous' police crackdown and harassment following Home Minister R R Patil's reprimand

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