New Amendments Will Axe Liquor Services

Amendments to the Business License Act will change the way liquor businesses register with the Department of Inland Revenue, and will mean the end of drive-through bars, takeaway restaurants serving liquor, and establishments that sell liquor through “cages”, DIR’s Acting Controller Shunda Strachan said yesterday.

Strachan was presenting the act’s changes to the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) and explained that the hotel industry, as well as established liquor businesses, will have to go through the DIR’s new registration process.

Strachan admitted that the process will be onerous for businesses at first.

“It’s a new certificate of registration, and it will be required by everybody that has a liquor business,” said Strachan.

“And, so, the Business License Act was amended, as I said, to introduce something called a certification process for all entities that are in the liquor business.

“And so hotels, that includes you. And I know that is going to be a big change, because right now, most hotels just have a general hotel license.”

She added: Cages will not be approved. Let me say it like that.

“And so approvals will not be granted for takeaway restaurants to sell alcohol. That is now a new thing.

“I’m told I don’t want to prejudice a particular community, but I think you know who I mean. They have lots and lots of restaurants and little stores and now their restaurants have turned into takeaways, and they sell… you could get a cup of Johnny Walker.

“And, so, those types of establishments will no longer be allowed.

“We are going to begin as soon as next week, just touching bases with businesses.

“But no more cages, no more takeaway restaurants.”

She added that convenience stores that have begun the practice of selling alcohol will no longer be allowed to do so.

She also explained that mobile bars will not be allowed, which could disrupt parts of the growing food truck industry in the country.

“I know that there are some tours, the party bus and that type of thing. So we are looking at how we can adjust for that, because we do know that it is a viable tour,” she said.

For the hotel industry, Strachan explained that each aspect of a hotel that deals with liquor will have to be evaluated.

BHTA members agreed that the changes will require heavy effort by their staff.

Strachan said DIR will need to get through the first year of this change in order to see how it can eventually make the process simpler for all the parties that will be affected.

For now, the change is an approach to curb the seemingly unimpeded growth of liquor stores in the country, and especially in New Providence.

In June, Minister of Housing and Urban Renewal Keith Bell yesterday lamented the “oversaturation” of liquor stores in urban communities on New Providence, and he spoke of plans to amend the Business License Act to reintroduce public consultations for new liquor licenses and the renewal of existing ones.

Bell said that on East Street, for example, from Shirley Street to Robinson Road, a distance of less than two miles, there are 13 liquor establishments He added that continuing south on East Street, between Robinson Road and Bamboo Boulevard – a two-mile stretch – there are another 19 liquor establishments.

By Chester Robards
Senior Business Reporter
Nassau Guardian