Western Cape legislators should stand firm in the face of opposition by ”vested interests” to legislation that will crack down on shebeens, provincial finance and economic affairs minister Garth Strachan said on Thursday.
He was responding to a veiled threat by South African Breweries to launch a constitutional challenge to the Western Cape Liquor Bill, which is about to be adopted by the legislature’s finance committee.
The Bill seeks to control the proliferation of bars in residential areas, and to crack down on retailers and distributors who supply illegal shebeens.
In a letter to committee chairperson Kobus Brynard this week, SAB in-house lawyer Richard Chance expressed alarm at the prospect that the licences of existing shebeens in residential areas would be revoked when the Bill was promulgated.
Chance said this would fall short of the aim of the National Liquor Act to develop the liquor industry in a way that facilitated new entrants and diversity of ownership.
”Such amendments may also be vulnerable to a challenge under the Constitution,” he said.
Strachan said in a statement that the letter had a ”rather unfortunate and threatening tone”.
”We must stand firm against vested interests,” he said.
”The abuse of liquor is unquestionably associated with crime, drugs, prostitution and gangs … it causes untold misery to our people.
”In my view we should stand firm in the face of a threat, implied or otherwise, of legal action on the matter.”
He said the Bill was a watershed moment in combating what was a massive social problem in the Western Cape.
”I remain convinced that the most important clauses in the Bill are the ones which target the supply of liquor at source,” he said.
”I wish to state my support for the clauses that ensure heavy fines, jail terms and asset forfeiture for retailers who supply illegal shebeens.”
Reacting to the SAB letter, the Congress of South African Trade Unions on Thursday threatened a boycott of the brewer if it insisted on ”poisoning our communities”. – Sapa