Bottle shop law will have 'minimal effect'

Just a day after announcing plans to curtail the sale of alcohol from bottle shops at night, Parliamentary Secretary Edwin Vassallo admitted that the move was likely to have little or no effect because it will not apply to outlets licensed as bars.

The regulations, that will be issued in the form of a legal notice, prohibits the sale of alcohol between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. by shops licensed as "confectionary shops" - but a number in Paceville are in fact licensed as bars.

"I have a Malta Tourism Authority licence," John Bonello, the owner of The Hole in the Wall, in St Julians, told The Times yesterday. A photograph of his outlet appeared in The Times yesterday over a caption reading "A new legal notice will ban confectionary shops from selling alcoholic drinks between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m." Mr Bonello insisted the MTA licensed his outlet as a "second-class bar".

Mr Bonello, the only outlet owner who agreed to speak on record, said: "Frankly, I think this is all a ploy to help out bar owners, and I expect the MTA to renew my licence this year as it has always done.

"If bars are feeling the pinch, perhaps they should cut their prices. All this law will do is force people to buy expensive drinks, that's all," an angry Mr Bonello said.

Mr Vassallo confirmed that shops like Mr Bonello's would not be affected by the planned legal notice. Although he admitted its effect would be "minimal", he maintained there would still be an effect.

"If we want to eliminate the social effect of alcohol, we would have to ban alcohol altogether," he said.

"Through this legislation we are partially reversing the effects of the liberalisation measures we introduced some years ago in respect of confectionaries because we realised that the current practice was having negative social effects."

The owners of confectionary shops, however, are claiming double standards.

"Where is the social logic behind closing down only certain bottle shops," one shop owner said. "What is more," she continued, "we applied for a licence in accordance with the law and now, like a bolt out of the blue, we are basically told we have to pack up".

She showed The Times her licence, issued by the Licensing and Commerce Division, certifying the shop as a retail establishment involved in the "sale of food and beverages in specialised stores, selling predominantly alcohol and other beverages".

On the other side of the spectrum, the owner of a bar argued that the law as it stood placed bottle shops at an unfair advantage because they did not have to comply with the same stringent laws.

The majority of bottle shops, he said, did not even have a toilet. "So people go to drink at these shops and relieve themselves, not to mention other things, in our bars. It's just not fair. If they play by the same rules, they can do what they like," he insisted.