What a Bunch of Hypocrites
R50 000 to sell booze and show World Cup soccer. You read right, R50 000 for a special licence. That's the profit margin on a lot of beers.
Jeff Radebe gazetted draft legislation in January relating to "public viewing events" around the Soccer World Cup. It baldly states that it'll cost landlords R50K for a special liquor licence just because they are showing a World Cup game on the pub telly. Plus 2% of their turnover. Yes, really, according to our beloved Government, that is what you will need to pay for a special licence if you intend to show World Cup soccer and sell booze in a pub, club or special venue during Blattertime.
This after tearing a strip off travel and accomodation suppliers and all and sundry for hiking prices in June and July. Money-grubbing bunch of chancers.
And they haven't even got it right.
Liquor licencing is a provincial matter, so liquor law expert Marius Blom says the measure is almost certainly unconstitutional. There is no provision in any provincial licencing act to suspend existing licences, no provision to issue special licences with a R50 000 fee, and there ain't no such animal as time limited licences that are valid only for the six weeks of Blattertime.
The legislation is also flawed in that if the landlord already has a liquor licence, all he needs to keep throwing suds over the counter is free admission to the venue and not to advertise that he will be showing WC soccer. He can advertise "Soccer", but not " The World Cup - Holland versus America" for example.
All this after they outsource the manufacture of the mascot to China. (By the way, doesn't the darling fella look like the outcome of an unnatural coupling involving the beloved Vodacom meerkat and a TV game show host).
What a bunch of hypocrites.
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Iain Robertson
February 18th, 2010 - 19:49
I seriously doubt that any pub would be prepared to pay for that ridiculous special license.
Goverment should just give the small business owners a deserved chance to also prosper from the world cup events. There is more than enough to share.
February 19th, 2010 - 08:11
@Werner: And therein lies the problem. Government doesn’t give a flying bottom emission about small business. They make all the appropriate noises, set up the appropriate structures in such a way as they cannot function properly, and then return to schmoozing with their big buddies.
They seem incapable of grasping the simple fact that in any developed economy about 80% of economic activity comes from businesses with less than 30 employees. Growth in the SA economy and hence employment will come in that sector, not by creating another Anglo or Barlows.
The less charitable answer is that they do not want to formalise the sector and bring it into SARS orbit in case they upset their political constituency.
It seems that small business is there to be used as a purse whenever they need a bit of pocket change.
February 19th, 2010 - 09:58
Oh, I am not allowed to say what I think about our present government. I saw Quatro Camp a long time back in Angola and that sort gave me a preview of what we see today. Quatro got 10 mins on the Truth and Retaliation Comity.
February 21st, 2010 - 10:10
A quick update. It now appears that they are backtracking. Spokesman Said “clarified” the situation by saying existing license holders need not apply, unless they intended charging for admission.
So once again, entrepreneurs are being shafted by government red tape.
At the worst cvase, a local charity or self-help group decide to do a bit of fund-raising. They hire a venue, put infrastructure in it for the local village to watch Bafana Bafana, and put up a bar to recoup their costs and make some money. They pay R50 ooo.
Doesn’t seem quite right to me.
February 22nd, 2010 - 08:16
Not applicable to Julius Malema or shebeens – Who will police shebeens ?
February 22nd, 2010 - 17:40
That is a point. I would not like to be the wonk in the Sundumbili Sports Tavern switching of a Bafana Bafana game because they haven’t paid the R50 000.