Bengaluru eateries seek police nod to stay open 24/7

Restaurants and hotels in the city want the police to allow them to stay open round the clock in accordance with a 15-month-old government notification that has remained unenforced due to the pandemic.

Before Covid-19 struck, hotels, restaurants and other shops in Bengaluru were allowed to stay open until 1 am.

On January 2 last year, Sandhya L Nayak, Deputy Secretary, Labour Department, issued a notification, permitting all shops and commercial establishments that employ 10 or more people to stay open 24/7 on all days of the week for three years.

The notification was issued at a time when India was coming out of the first wave of Covid-19. But the brutal second wave and the subsequent lockdowns last year threw a spanner in the works. The third wave only added to the problem.

Although the Covid situation has eased now, hoteliers say police are imposing arbitrary closing timings that vary from place to place and depend on the “whims of the respective deputy commissioner”. In most parts of the city, police are asking all shops to shut down by 11 pm.

Hoteliers are refusing to budge. Going a step further, they want the 2021 notification to be enforced.

Last Saturday, the Bruhat Bangalore Hotels’ Association wrote to Bengaluru Police Chief Kamal Pant, urging him to permit all shops to stay open round the clock as per the notification.

The association represents hotels, restaurants, bakeries, sweetmeats shops, and ice cream parlours. Its president P C Rao said business was picking up and asked the police to stop the arbitrary closing timings.

While acknowledging that not all shops in the city would want to do business round the clock, he called for a blanket rule about the business hours as per the notification so that the police “do not harass” any shopkeeper.

Police Vs Palike

The police chief said the matter was for the BBMP to decide because it is the licensing authority. “We are not the competent authority,” Pant told DH.

He added that there are so many dimensions to the issue. “There will be the issue of security at night. It’s not just an order. It has implications. We have to examine it in detail,” he said.

Rao countered Pant, arguing the decision must be taken by the police. “The BBMP only issues the licence without putting any restrictions on the business hours. The problem is only from the police, not from the BBMP,” he said.

“There have been incidents of policemen taking away our cashiers and service boys and locking them up in the police station for a day.”

Conceding that the 24/7 timings may not be feasible, Rao said shops should be allowed to stay open at least until “2-3 am”.

The association plans to petition the home minister or the chief minister if the police chief refuses to enforce the notification.

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