Police are busy establishing if dance bars owners and their staff have any criminal antecedents
Mumbai : In a bizarre twist to the dance bar issue, the Mumbai police is busy establishing if the dance bar owners and their staff have `criminal antecedents’ , which debars them from getting a dance bar licence under the new provisions.
The state government had laid down a list of 26 preconditions that had to be met by the dance bars who were interested in getting a licence. These pre-conditions included having CCTV coverage of the exit and entry area of the bar, having a three foot high barrier between the dancers and the customers and having a distance of at least five feet between them.
However, in a recent hearing on this issue, the Supreme Court pulled up the State Government for non-compliance of its instructions and said that licences must be issued to them by May 10. Sources said the administration appears to be cornered on this issue and wants to come up with something to justify to the SC for not issuing licences by this date.
A senior police officer from the licences department said that one of the pre-conditions for giving licenses is that neither the dance bar owner, nor the staff and not even the bar itself must have any criminal record against them. ”This also includes the bar dancers and if they have any criminal antecedents against them, this becomes a ground for refusing licences to them,” the officer said.
All through the hearings on this issue, the SC has not denied the fact that proper verification of all the pre conditions has to be done before licenses can be given out, the officer said. “And all our verification activities have only shown that these bars have definitely not been able to comply with these conditions,” he pointed out.
Most of all, their inquiries have shown that almost each and every one of the dance bars have some kind of case against them, whether it is late operating of the bar or not having all the due permits and permissions. Some joints have cases against them for having more number of females on their premises than allowed and still others have cases for having illegal cavities that are used for hiding female staff during a police raid.
Responding to this development, Ramanna Shetty, who runs a dance bar in Kandivali(W), said that this is most impossible condition to meet since practically every bar in the city has some kind of case against it.”It is entirely within the power of the police to conduct some kind of raid against a bar and make cases against it, and this can be used against the same place for not issuing them a license,” he explained.
It has now become increasingly clear that the government totally does not intend to issue licences to the dance bars and all these are merely tactics to delay the process. “The way out now is that the SC can issue a contempt of court notice and issue orders to the administration to issue the licences,” he added.
