On Saturday, February 6, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) permitted restaurants and bars to operate till 1 am keeping in view the requests from owners who iterated that the 11:30 pm deadline had “no logic”.
This comes 24 hours after the BMC restricting hotels and bars from operating beyond 11.30 pm. Back in December 2020, the civic body had imposed a night curfew across Mumbai, wherein restaurant and bar owners were allowed to operate till 11.30 pm, in view of New Year celebrations. Given that the State Government and the civic body has initiated a night curfew from 11 PM to 5 AM, hotels and restaurants in Mumbai had decided to ring in the New Year by 10:30 PM instead of midnight in adherence with the official guidelines put forth by the authorities.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Christmas and New Year celebrations would go on until 5 AM the next day. However, given the restrictions in place, the festivities were somewhat lukewarm last year.
In recent developments, the state government, while extending the lockdown till February 28 last week, allowed restaurants and bars to remain open till 1 am at night as part of its “Mission Begin Again” campaign which happens to be a staggered plan to enforce relaxations in the lockdown norms.
On the other hand, according to the notification issued by the BMC on Saturday, restaurant, bar, banquet halls and food courts can remain open in the city between 7 am and 1 am, followed by other shops and establishments that can remain open between 7 am and 11 pm. Meanwhile, shops selling alcohol in the city have been permitted to remain operational between 10 am and 10.30 pm.
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