Errant cinema in Excise net
Dharme Sri ABEYRATHNE
HORANA: Excise officers on Friday raided a cinema liquor bar in
Horana which was selling liquor illegally to outside customers.
According to Excise regulations, cinema bars can serve liquor only to
ticketed patrons watching a film.
The Excise Department team seized the liquor bar licence. The raid
was conducted on a tip-off received from a resident.
The cinema has been monitored by plain clothes officers of the Excise
Department for quite some time and they noticed that the bar owners were
violating the licence conditions continuously.
The Excise officers also noticed that the contents of arrack sold was
lower than customers' orders. The suspects have sold 75 ml of liquor
pretending that the volume was 100 ml. Seventy one bottles of arrack
were also seized.
When the Excise officers arrived at the bar in plain clothes, the
suspects had tried to sell liquor to them.
The suspects produced before the Excise Commissioner General
Parakrama Bandara Ekanayake were fined Rs.250,000.
The raid was led by the Excise OIC Jagath Perera and the Excise IP
Wijesinghe under the guidance of Excise Commissioner General Ekanayake
and Excise Superintendent Subash Jayawickrama.
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