The recent talks doing the rounds about an imminent ban on live music in Bangalore city started when the local police slapped a notice on pubs and restaurants in the city that conduct live music performances. It all started when the local police stations received the notice (attached below) along with a list of ‘offenders’ , who needed to be served this notice. This happened in parallel in places all over the state. Local police stations in Bangalore have been serving the notice to offenders in their jurisdiction Zero-G and venues in far flung locations like Manipal (Blue Waters) were raided. In Indiranagar, venues like Take 5, Xtreme Sports Bar , Cirrus, B Flat , Love Shack, Toit and The Beach were served the notice; all these venues are located around the 100 feet area , which has high visibility and traffic.
Our sources reveal that the cops, were heard telling some venue owners that this topic is ‘hot’ right now and the top brass is creating a lot of pressure on them to crack down and stop these locations from having live performances. In Love Shack, one person was charged with assault on a cop and had to cough up a hefty five figure fine. Cirrus was raided on 21st September, and also places like Pebble and Fuga. Last week , at Zero-G, 150 patrons were arrested for dancing , the DJ’s equipment were confiscated and not returned since. The crackdown seems to be directed towards dance-floor centric restaurants for having a strong correlation with their definition of ‘Dance Bar.’ The question is : when there is no dancing at venues like Take 5 or LOR , why are they supposed to quiet down?
The owner of a pub in Indiranagar says “Licenses allowing for live music exist, but the Licenses are given out to only 3-5 star restaurants/hotels (We have no data to support this). Its a fair thing to have a license to validate live music. We already have so many licenses for everything we sell, but at least provide some advance notice to owners to procure permissions.”
These problems can be voiced by bodies like the Pub Owners Association headed by Ashish (LOR) and Ananth (Fusion Lounge) by rousing the support of all the venue owners affected by the recent turn of events. This is exactly the kind of effect that can trickle down to the lives of so many people, because the former CM decided to replace the Police Commissioner with a man more suited to his orders.
A clear distinction is necessary to separate the dance bars from the myriad other places of amusement that do not come under this definition but suffer at the hands of the police. Once this distinction is made, prostitution can be dealt with at separate levels of intensity, assuming this is where the problem really stems from.
Translation of the letter:
” This letter is to inform you that it has come to our notice your bar & restaurant is using high intensity bright colored lighting , playing loud western music where clients come to drink alcohol, get drunk and dance causing disturbance to the neighboring houses in the locality. In this regard, you have no clearances authorized. Any such instance reported in the future at your bar and restaurant will result in legal action being initiated as well as cancellation of operating licenses by the higher authorities.”
Special Report, What’s The Scene India
