BENGALURU: The night and weekend curfew in the city — one of the restrictions fuelled by the pandemic — is hitting the food and beverage industry hard, which was just about getting back on its feet.
Night curfew, which was imposed in April last year during the second wave, was lifted on November 8 after seven months.
One of the fine dining places, also known for good music in the city, Tao Terraces, downed shutters on Saturday evening after owner Naren Beliappa said that repeated closures, high rentals, unrelenting landlords and government apathy had left him with no option but to close for now.
Beliappa posted on social media announcing the closure stating that after 10 years, “your favourite music destination, the Tao Terraces, is closing today. Our biggest challenge has been high rentals and the fact that we are the first ones to be closed every time restrictions are announced and last to be re-opened. When we closed our doors temporarily in March last year, none of us imagined then that Covid would still be prevalent 21 months later. But we kept our hopes high even in the face of an impossible situation because we love what we do so much..presenting the best music to the best crowd in the world!” Beliappa stated.
He said that repeated closures have driven the F&B industry in the city to the brink.
“It has become unviable and unsustainable. How do we pay Excise duty, run our business and pay our staff in the face of repeated closures?” he asked.
The head of Bengaluru chapter of the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) and co-founder of popular microbrewery Toit, Mukesh Tolani, said that they had approached the Excise Department with a request to relax the night curfew till 11.30 pm instead of 10 pm on weekdays.
“We have lost a major chunk of business due to the pandemic. Our weekday business is minimal because of the lack of IT crowd. Night curfew from 10pm, and now the weekend curfew has dealt a body blow to restaurants, pubs and bars. Forget business, our survival and that of our staff is at stake,” he said, adding that their efforts to meet the Chief Minister and Excise Commissioner to allow them to do business on weekends have gone in vain because of their preoccupation with the new Covid-19 wave,” he added.
The cascading effect of the weekend curfew on staff and suppliers of bar and restaurants is another major worry.
“Our weekend supply bills including meat, vegetables, etc., during normal times is around Rs 4 lakh. It has come to zero because we are forced to close down on weekends. This also impacts the stakeholders like suppliers and staff. Weekend lockdown is brutal to F&B sector. A night curfew is good enough in times like this,” felt Rajesh Rajaram of Ebony restaurant.
NRAI national committee member Amit Roy of Watson’s said that F&B industry in Karnataka has been bearing the brunt of repeated closures since March 2020.
“We are made to pay Excise licence fee in advance, which we have been doing diligently despite the fact that there were months when we were completely shut down during the national lockdown in early 2020. We have not asked the government for any concession. We are requesting them to waive the licence fee for the months when we were closed. There is no support from the government and the pressure from landlords to pay rents on time is a killer. We are made to close shop on the smallest of pretexts — elections, festivals or law and order. The pandemic-related restrictions have taken our breath away,” said Roy.
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