There might be a new by-law in Cape Town, but the Cape Argus did not have any trouble buying booze after 6pm.
|||Cape Town - There might be a new by-law in Cape Town preventing bottle stores from selling alcohol after 6pm, but the Cape Argus did not have any trouble buying up an armful of booze on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday, the Cape Argus went out to try to buy alcohol at various popular drinking holes and found that buying at 6pm and even at 7.30pm was as easy as purchasing alcohol during the official opening hours.
A patron who did not want to be named said the authorities could make his favourite tipple as expensive as they wanted or shorten trading hours but that wouldn’t stop him from drinking it.
“If they close the liquor stores earlier, I will just come buy it earlier and keep it by my house; it won’t make a difference to me.”
In Athlone shortly after 6pm, workers at a small shebeen were unloading cases of beer, but the shebeen was not open.
We then tried another area, where we were much more successful. The first tavern was fairly quiet, with a couple of people drinking at the bar. We bought two six-packs of cider and one of beer, paying R50 a six-pack.
The second outlet was a bottle store only - there was no seating area. While a beer truck was unloading, we stuck our hands through the hatch and bought a bottle of brandy, two quarts of beer and a quart of cider.
The brandy was R100 and the quarts R11 each, with the deposit.
The tavern and shebeen visitors bought their alcohol as if it was a normal liquor day free of by-laws.
Cape Argus