Hotel owners frustrated over liquor licence delay
Over 30 hotels are awaiting liquor licences for the past several months.
These licences are lying at the Department of Excise pending approval, industry sources said. They say the owners are getting frustrated in these dire times amidst the pandemic. “We have been waiting for many months and some hotels have been waiting for over a year. From what we understand, the Department of Excise is awaiting Treasury approval,” a source told the Business Times.
The hoteliers who have been denied the licences are frustrated and they point out that if these were granted, at least 30 odd people could be employed as barmen in the hotels. “At least they will have jobs. That opportunity is denied because we have been waiting for so long,” one hotelier said.
Industry sources also said that licences are being withheld because it will be ‘bad publicity’ for the government in the wake of the impending elections. Apparently the Treasury has decided it is so, another hotelier awaiting his license said, noting the bad policy decision.
Upon enquiring from the Department of Exercise, the Business Times found out that all necessary processes for approval of these licences have been done and they were awaiting the Treasury’s nod. A senior official said that the Treasury has informed them that the go-ahead will be given ‘soon’.