Liquor raids infuriate
Scores of angry tavern owners, both local and from different townships around Ekurhuleni, packed the Reiger Park Community Hall last Wednesday, April 19 to protest against what they claimed was harassment and a violation of their human rights - and a High Court order.
According to Linda Madida, president of the Gauteng Liquor Traders Association (GLTA), raids on several taverns around Ekurhuleni by members of the SAPS’s Liquor Control Unit under Lt Col Kobus Rautenbach started just before the Easter weekend.
Madida later told Kathorus MAIL that the amount of alcohol confiscated from the GLTA members during the raids is valued at an estimated R1.5-million. He explained that some member liquor traders spent between R15 000 and R20 000 soliciting lawyers to defend themselves against penalties imposed and to obtain the return of their confiscated stock.
An angry Madida described the raids as a “breach” of a moratorium introduced by the Gauteng Economic Development MEC, Lebogang Maile’s office following a pending High Court Order on shebeen licensing. He pointed Kathorus MAIL to a memo from the office of the MEC to Lt. Col Rautenbach of the SAPS Service’s Liquor Control Board (LCB).
The memo is dated September 30, 2014 and headed “Decision Regarding the Period of Validity of the Shebeen Permit”.
In his letter MEC Maile draws the attention of the office of the SAPS’s LCB to an earlier memo dated March 2013 from his predecessor, former MEC Andile Kolisile, regarding the validity of existing liquor trading licences for shebeen owners. In the memo MEC Maile appealed to the office of Ltn Col Rautenbach and Col Naidoo of the LCB unit to refrain from conducting liquor raids until September 2014, in order to allow the GLB to finalise an adjudication process.
“Be advised that there is a pending High Court application against the Department challenging the promulgation or the Validity of the Shebeen Regulation 2013 and the relief sought among others is that the Board must put on hold the consideration of the Shebeen Licence applications,” read MEC Maile’s letter to the Liquor Control Board unit under Lt Col Rautenbach and Col Naidoo.
Madida explained that the High Court recently discussed the matter and a final verdict is to be passed only towards the end of May. According to Madida, the recent raids are a violation of the moratorium contained in MEC Maile’s letter of September 2014.
“We have been taken aback by the recent raids on our members despite the memo by MEC Lebogang Maile, requesting a halt on such raids until the Court’s final findings which will be announced some time in May,” explained Madida.
