AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye No Alcohol to be sold on Good Friday

Amen TravelinMan!

from friends.... in various locations in Belize....

Restaurants could not start serving liquor until 6 PM in Placencia - and any grocery store that ordinarily sold liquor had to be closed for the entire day. Why? Why not just prohibit the grocery stores from selling liquor? Why prohibit the sale of liquor anyway - at all.

=============


On Good Friday went to a restaurant in Caye Caulker for lunch. The proprietor informed us that he could not serve any alcoholic beverages with our lunch. He explained that it is against the law to sell alcoholic beverages between the hours of one pm and 3 pm on Good Friday. One minute before 1 or one minute after 3 you are good to go. Maybe some of the time spent revising the constitution to allow citizens of another country to sit in the national assembly should be spent on cleaning up these absurdities still on the law book of Belize. I think it is still illegal for females to work after sunset in Belize.

=================

The stores were closed all day on Friday and when the Chinese shopkeeper opened his store at 6:30 pm, 15 minutes later the police came and forced him to close. It's not just that tourism provides 25% of jobs in Belize or that it contributes to 18% of GDP and forcing businesses to remain closed on Sundays and other holidays cuts off part of the GOB's income, since tourists can't find places to spend their money, but also the fact that a large number of Belizeans don't own refrigerators and thus are dependent on daily food shopping, that makes this medieval law, which the police seem very keen on enforcing recently, a highest form of insanity. Why is this law still on the books and why are they spending time and effort to enforce it while they can't cope with basic issues of public safety? Isn't there anyone in Belmopan with functioning cerebral cortex who'd scrape this imbecilic piece of legislation off the books or at least tell the police to go chase criminals and mindless jerks "driving" on the roads?

Editorial: If You Don't Like the Law…Change It

If you happen to disagree with or find a specific law nonsensical and/or outdated, such as the Good Friday Alcohol Law that was hotly debated last week, then it is up to us, THE PEOPLE, to have the law changed. It is wrong to ask the ones who are paid to maintain the law to disregard it just because some of us find it inconvenient or untimely. There is plenty to debate over this controversial law. Some community members, mostly local business owners, have objected to it claiming they will lose revenue on liquor sales on one of the busiest tourism days of the year. It is not so much the debate that people cannot live without buying booze for one day, but that with each peak tourism day optimal income is essential to surviving through the off-season. Denied the opportunity to capitalize on this seems economically counterproductive. Others argue that Church is crossing the line into Government, imposing the religious Easter rituals upon those who choose not to. Should businesses and individuals opt to recognize Good Friday then so be it, but to mandate this "belief" on an economy that literately counts the days of tourism dollars, the financial loss is the direct result of a secular belief imposed upon the business community.

At 3PM on Good Friday, the San Pedro Police came out in force, closing down grocery stores that also sold liquor. Just about every shop, large or small sells liquor in San Pedro, and by closing them down for the rest of the day other store essentials were unavailable to the public. One person complained that an afternoon errand that day to buy laundry soap, bottled water and toilet paper turned into an island scavenger hunt in search of an open store. In essence the law banned any and all shopping for the day. It seems leniency was extended to restaurants and bars that were serving alcohol as early as 6PM, most likely spared the consequences of the law after constables were persuaded by local government officials and higher powers to disregard it.

Click here to read the rest of the article in the San Pedro Sun

Amen...do not ask the police to legislate or interpret, they are there to enforce. Providing exceptions to some on the part of the elected officials certainly aggravates the situation, but then Ad hoc legislation and interpretation is not limited to alcohol.