The legal notice banning the sale of alcohol in confectioneries after 9 p.m. is nonsensical and should be withdrawn immediately, according to Vince Farrugia, director general of the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU.
Mr Farrugia said that, while he understood the government wanted to address the problem of people drinking on the streets, it did not make sense to put all confectioneries in the same basket through a blanket legal notice. He said the legal notice, which changes the trading licence radically overnight, would “crucify” confectioneries.
The new regulations give confectioneries until June 15 to choose whether they will opt to stop selling alcohol after 9 p.m. and enjoy unrestricted opening hours or else continue selling alcohol but close at 9 p.m.
“A government that knows what it is doing would pass a law to solve problems not cause new ones. The government should either change the legal notice or withdraw it as soon as possible and instead draft another legal notice that really addresses the problem at hand,” the GRTU said.
The move is intended to prevent people from drinking on the streets. Paradoxically, it was partly through the complaints of other small business owners and establishments in Paceville and St Julians that confectioneries were now slapped with the new legal notice.
Bottle shops have been regulated through a St Julians local council by-law making it illegal to drink alcohol in glass containers in several designated streets. The problem erupted when these bottle shops, selling alcohol, were granted a licence to operate as a confectionery in order to be able to have unrestricted opening hours.
Mr Farrugia proposed allowing confectioners to retain all their licences and only those in certain localities would be banned from selling alcohol after a certain time and, in particular, throughout certain periods of the year by means of by-laws issued by local councils.
“The government has no right, except via a court order, to pass a law, through a legal notice, effectively telling the owner of a small business to dispose of part of his business,” Mr Farrugia said.
Ryan Dimech, owner of Basic Food and Drink, a confectionery in St Julians, is livid at the legal notice. He said food and other items accounted for 60 per cent of his sales with the rest being alcohol. He remains open till 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. and his customers were mainly tourists. The peak of his sales starts at about 8 p.m.
“Let’s say we close, do you think the problem of youngsters drinking on the streets will stop? I don’t think so. If anything, we should have more police patrols to catch the culprits rather than make us close early just because we have alcohol on our shelves,” he said.
He said he recently invested thousands of euros in his shop and was now being told he had to close early because he happened to sell alcohol. The three summer months made up for the lack of sales in winter because people only go out on the weekends.