'If FTV is allowed, why not dancing in bars?'

MUMBAI: Mumbai’s bars are still reeling from all the attention they have been getting from Mumbai’s moral police. From April 1, the police started enforcing its liquor permit rules.
According to these rules, under-21s are not allowed in bars, those under 25 years can only consume beer and wine, and those over 25 need a liquor permit before downing their whiskey.“These restrictions have already started affecting our revenues,’’ a bar owner said. Chandrahas Shetty, secretary of the Association Of Hotels And Restaurants (AHAR), which represents more than 6,000 hoteliers, says that the proposal to create barricades in bars is “absurd and violates the human rights of dancers’’.
“I will never dance if I am barricaded,’’ says Sheetal Thakur, a 21-year-old professional bar dancer. “The talk of a new dress code for dancers also defies logic and smacks of double standards,’’ said Shetty. “Some of the committee members said the girls should not dress provocatively and should be well-covered. Well, most of these dancers wear ghagra-cholis,which are not obscene.
“In fact, they are better clad than Mallika Sherawat in ‘Murder’,’’ said Dippender Singh Sachdev, AHAR president. “The police find nothing objectionable in Fashion TV which shows scantily clad models walking up and down the ramp, but they want to pick on bar owners.’’
As regards the showering of money on the dancers by patrons, AHAR said it was willing to stop the practice. “A patron who wants to tip a girl can hand over the money to the waiter and point out the girl to whom the money should go,’’ said Shekhar Shetty.
Bar owners say they are willing to change the names of the bars which are named after gods and goddesses provided the authorities effect the change in their licences in a day. “We are not willing to wait endlessly for the change,’’ a hotelier said.