Street parking, a public nuisance

It is mandatory for bars and restaurants to provide adequate parking space, but liquor outlets and toddy compounds are not bound by any such conditions.

However, irrespective of mandatory norms, visitors to wine shops, bar and restaurants and toddy compounds are found parking their vehicles along the roads causing severe traffic inconvenience, often leading to nuisance and quarrels between commuters and drinkers at the liquor outlets.

“A bar and restaurant along the NTR Nagar route near Ozone Hospital, RK Puram, does not have parking facilities and by late evening, customers park their vehicles along the road. Often the situation culminates into a quarrel between the road users and the drunkards.

Though the traffic cops are found intercepting vehicles for various violations along the route, they seem to ignore the vehicles parked in front of the bar and restaurant,” said Mr Ramachari, local representative of NTR Nagar Colony.

Sardar Dharam Singh, a resident of Manikya Nagar, Chintal said, “The premises are overcrowded on any given night at the liquor outlet along the main road of Chintal. The vehicles are parked in front of the shops, reducing the 40 feet road to 15 feet.

The drunkards deliberately misbehave with women and girls passing by. Can’t the patrolling van see these problems?”

There are over 215 bar and restaurants, 163 liquor shops and 46 recently-opened toddy compounds across the city. Though excise officials are keen on collecting huge sums as license fees, the implementation of the mandatory rules are ignored.

A higher official with Telangana State Excise and Prohibition depart-ment (Hyderabad) said, “Adequate parking facility is mandatory for bar and restaurants as per the Excise policy. But liquor shops do not have those conditions.” He, however, was not sure how many bar and restaurants were abiding with the norms.