With extremists gone, booze is back in Mosul

MOSUL, Iraq — Rows of yellowlabeled whiskey bottles sit alongside imported French wines, while cans of Korean beer chill in the fridge: with Iraq’s Mosul free of jihadists, the booze is back.

The city spent three years under the iron-fisted rule of the Islamic State group, which punished those caught drinking alcohol with public lashings or worse.

But more than a year since Iraqi forces ousted the jihadists from Mosul, liquor stores are flourishing.

The western commercial district of al-Duwasa is home to several modest outlets, including Khairallah Tobey’s.

The enterprising 21-year-old bounced between well-stocked shelves, pulling down bottles of beer priced at an affordable 1,500 Iraqi dinars — just over a dollar.

“Our sales are good right now,” said Tobey, a member of Iraq’s Yazidi minority.

Owners of Mosul’s bottle shops are all Yazidi or Christian, as Iraq does not grant alcohol licenses to Muslim citizens.

But under the IS, which violently enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law when it overran Mosul in 2014, everyone was banned from selling, buying, or drinking alcohol.

Booze never completely disappeared from the city — its residents found ways to smuggle it in — but it was expensive and dangerous.

With Mosul back under government control since July 2017, liquor stores are now back in the open.

“At work, I feel relaxed and not afraid or nervous at all, thanks to the security and freedom now present in Mosul,” Tobey said.

Across the Tigris river in the city’s east, vendor Abu Rayan said he has had the last laugh.

“I opened up my shop again just to spite Daesh, after it kicked us out of the city and confiscated our property and money,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Not everyone in Mosul is thrilled with the city’s burgeoning booze sector.

Some residents have demanded liquor stores be shut for religious reasons or to protect young people.

But others say doing so would be a violation of individual rights.

“Drinking wine is a personal freedom that is allowed by the law. It has nothing to do with the difficult circumstances that this city has gone through,” says Ali Hassan, who paints homes.

Mosul, though, may have a new problem — too many unlicensed liquor stores are opening up, which has worried authorities and angered those shopkeepers who do have the right paperwork.

“We’ve received more than 100 requests for licenses, and so far 25 have been issued,” said regional official Zuhair al-Aaraji.

Shops selling alcohol must be a certain distance from homes, schools, places of worship, and government offices, he said.

Rights activist Mohammad Salem, 31, said regulation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but that individual rights should be protected.

“The best situation is to organize the trade and sale of alcoholic drinks, supervised by social, health, and security authorities,” Salem said.

After all, he added, alcohol sales could provide an important source of revenue for Mosul as it rebuilds.

“Any decision to ban liquor would contradict personal freedoms, and deprive the city of economic and financial resources that it needs in this current state.”