Friday 'cheers' in 731 pubs in Bengaluru will come to an end on June 30

Pubs in MG Road, Lavelle Road, Church Street will be stopped from serving liquor Saturday onwards. Some of the pubs, which will face the ban include Hard Rock Café, Pecos Mojo, 13th Floor, Wyt restopub and The Pub World. However, microbreweries in the city will be safe.

Owing to the Supreme Court ruling of closing down pubs and liquor shops close to the Highway, happening places like MG Road, Lavelle Road, and Church Street have also come under the radar. Clueless as to how these places are considered the "National Highways", pub owners could be seen on a measurement spree calculating the distance of their outlets from the highway. Frantic calls to the excise department officials proved fruitless because even they did not have clear details of the action plan.

As owners and pub goers wait in anticipation of the "final destination", some are sulking for the fact that the state government did not bail them out. The pubs that will stop serving liquor include the Hard Rock Café, Pecos Mojo, 13th Floor, Wyt restopub and The Pub World. However, the new microbreweries seem to be safe, which include Biere Club, Arbor Brewing Company, Bangalore Brew Works Skyye Bar, Shiro (and other UB City bars). Sunny’s and Smokehouse Deli on Lavelle Road will also continue to serve guests as usual.

However, what is more worrisome is the fact that hundreds of people will be rendered unemployed. Even the Supreme Court is silent about it. Speaking to the Bangalore Mirror, owner of The Pub World, Ashok Sadhwani said, "The Karnataka government was sleeping. They should have acted when the SC started dealing with the case. How could we have known that MG Road and Brigade Road were national highways? This will bring us to the footpath. So many jobs will go. What about their families. They have invested their lifetime into this business."

Meanwhile, excise officials said that they will now visit the liquor vends that come under the purview of the SC order and freeze the excess stock. The entire process will start from Saturday morning. As per Bangalore Mirror, "Of the 731 vends that will shut down, 244 are in Bengaluru South excise division (which comprises Koramangala, Electronics City, BTM Layout, Jayanagar, Adugodi etc); 222 are in east Bengaluru division (Ulsoor, Ashoknagar, Indiranagar, KR Puram etc); 140 in north division (Hebbal and surrounding areas); and 125 in west division (Kengeri, JP Nagar and Banashankari)."