Jeering inspectors uninvited guests at unopened dance bars

MUMBAI: Within a day of renewing the licenses of four dance bars, the police and home department surveyed the premises of two (Indiana in Tardeo and Natraj in Vidyavihar) on Tuesday and asked their owners to “strictly comply with norms” like larger emergency exit doors and in higher numbers, CCTV cameras on all doors and not just at the entrance, emergency power backup and renewal of fire NOCs. A joint team of home department and police officials got the four bars to surrender their licenses, telling them they would get new ones upon fulfilling “properly framed conditions”. The U-turn has shocked hoteliers, who have called the move negligence, if not harassment, as licenses were issued to them only after they fulfilled all norms. The government has decided to come up with a new set of rules as a code of conduct for dance bars “to avoid vulgarity”. The four bars (Uma Palace in Mulund and Padma Palace in Bhandup are the other two) were given licenses after home department and police teams found them to be in compliance with new conditions the government framed after a Supreme Court order. The surveying teams were led by home secretary Vijay Satbeer Singh and DCP (headquarters) Pradip Sawant. Bharat Thakur, president of the dance bars association, which is affiliated to Ahar, an association of over 8,000 bars and hotels in Mumbai, said, “The latest steps, we are told, are being taken on the instructions of the CM, who apparently does not want any breach of rule as in the case of any irregularity, the opposition might grill him.” Ahar president Adarsh Shetty said the post-license instructions could have been done beforehand. “We don’t understand the reason for taking back recently renewed licenses. Many more licenses are to be given. Hoteliers have been gearing up to restart the dance bar business. We are cooperating despite the SC’s directives to the state to issue licenses by March 15.”