Police have arrested three people in connection with running “backyard” shebeens and confiscated 200 litres of alcohol in Philippi.
|||Cape Town - Police have arrested three people in connection with running illegal “backyard” shebeens and confiscated 200 litres of alcohol in an operation in Samora Machel in Philippi.
Provincial police spokesman FC Van Wyk confirmed that two men and a woman were arrested on Tuesday after failing to produce liquor licences.
He said the the three suspects - aged between 18 and 50 - were expected to appear in the Philippi Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday for dealing in liquor without a licence.
The 18-year-old arrested at a tavern in Chris Hani Street said he was unaware the owner did not have a licence. “I don’t know about this. I was called from the Eastern Cape by the owner to come and work for him here,” he said before police took him away.
The owner was not at the tavern when the police visited.
Residents were unhappy about the teen’s arrest and the confiscation of the alcohol.
Mandisa Betho said: “We don’t get any problems with this tavern. Old people drink here and that saves them from going to taverns that are far off where they are at risk of getting robbed.”
About 20 cases of beer, seven six packs of cider, 12 bottles of vodka and several bottles of wine were confiscated during the raid.
The owner at another tavern in Zephania Mathopeng Road, Amanda Hloniwe, said selling alcohol was the only way she could generate income for her family.
Hloniwe counted herself lucky to escape any police action as her alcohol stock was finished over the weekend. “It’s not nice when police take the alcohol because you have to restock.”
She added that she had been arrested previously for not having a licence, but continued to sell after her release.
“When I got arrested they took me to the police station and held me in custody, after that you go to court and then a few weeks later you get a letter instructing you to go get your alcohol,” she said.
zodidi.dano@inl.co.za
Cadet News Agency
Cape Argus