BJP MP Kirron Kher today asked how logical it was that a hotel with a five-star rating could not serve liquor as she came out in support of hoteliers hit hard by a Supreme Court order banning the sale of liquor along highways.
“How logical is it that you can’t serve liquor in a five-star hotel. Why have you given it a five-star rating? Why has it been given permission for that place?” Kher asked, asserting that the hotel industry was a major job provider.
It is a question of “more than a million jobs” all over the country, she said.
Speaking about her Lok Sabha constituency, Kher said the local youth got employment in five-star hotels such as Taj or JW Marriot, which were among those affected by the order.
Raising a question about road safety, Kher asked who would keep an eye on habitual drinkers among truck drivers, “who may choose to carry liquor bottles as they drive”.
“Those truckers who drink will fill up bottles in their trucks and drive on highways. Who is going to stop them? So, we need to think over it,” Kher said.
According to an office-bearer of the Chandigarh Hotel and Restaurant Association, as many as 95 bars will be affected by the Supreme Court order and several hotels and restaurants located in Sectors 26, 7, 35 and 17 in the city will go dry.
He claimed that it could affect the jobs of up to 10,000 people employed in these bars, hotels and restaurants.
A famous watering hole in the City Beautiful, the Chandigarh Press Club in Sector 27 has also stopped serving drinks as it falls within 500 metres of Madhya Marg, a state highway.
The Supreme Court had, in a recent order, held that liquor vends within 500 metres of national and state highways will have to shut down from April 1 while giving exemptions to hill states like Sikkim, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh and areas having a population up to 20,000.
