Liquor shops register dip in business, customers fume

AURANGABAD: Liquor shops in the city have registered a huge dip in sales from Tuesday night after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
The shop owners have stated that the regular customers were left fuming after they refused to entertain their request of accepting the withdrawn currencies in return for liquor.
Some of the wine shop owners have also claimed that their business fell by almost 80 per cent.Not wanting to lose their regular customers, some wine shop owners accepted the demonetised currency notes after being compelled by them.
A liquor shop owner for two decades Jaimalsingh Randhwa, said, "The number of customers visiting the shop has dropped considerably since the announcement. We hope the business to resume once things fall into place."
The elderly trader also said that saying no to a regular customer has become the biggest challenge faced by him and his staffers.
The situation went out of hand for a shop in the city, which had to pull its shutters after a group of regular customers got in to a heated argument with the staffers for not accepting the withdrawn denominations.
The liquor shop owner said "I literally had to pull the shutters down of my shop after a handful regular customers started creating a scene over my staffers refusing to accept currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000."
The shop owner said that the customers were so desperate to purchase liquor that they even asked the shop staffers to consider the withdrawn currency note at half of its denomination.
Raju Malkani, one of the members of a city based group that owns five wine shops, told TOI, "We are under tremendous pressure from the regular customer to accept the currencies of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000."