HYDERABAD: COVID-19 has dealt a crushing blow to bars and pubs in the State. Upscale areas of Hyderabad, known for their swank bars and pubs, wear a deserted look by the fall of evening as all bars have remained shut since March when the lockdown was imposed. Though exemption was given for wine shops for selling liquor, bars and pubs have been left to languish. The owners describe overheads like fixed power charges, rents for buildings and staff salaries as back-breaking with no cash kicking in after they spent a fortune on licence fees, hoping to earn mega-bucks.
“Bars and pubs are suffering colossal losses. There are about 1,000 bars in the State of which more than 500 are located in Hyderabad. All of them have remained shut. Some bars have sacked employees while others are making payments to whatever extent possible to the staff,” Telangana Wine Dealers Association president D Venkateswara Rao says. Excise Department sources said they do not expect any enthusiastic response for renewal of licences of bars and pubs when the fresh year begins in September.
“Though there are still two months to go for renewals, we do not expect any encouraging response,” a source in the Excise Department said. The bar owners are not gung-ho over renewal of licences since uncertainty looms large over when they would be allowed to resume business. “Even if they are allowed to do business, it is highly unlikely that they would have the same kind of patronage which they had before the pandemic. Having paid anywhere between `35 lakh and `70 lakh for bar licences, traders are not ready to burn their fingers once again.
“Though we are allowed to pay the licence fee in instalments, all of us have paid in full, only about two per cent availed four instalments of which the last one is pending. In Telangana, if one avails the instalment facility, they have to give a bank guarantee. There would be pressure to either pay up towards the last instalment or run the risk of losing the bank guarantee,” one trader said.