CITY’S RESTAURANT, PUB OWNERS RUE LOSSES

The five-year-old practice of lacing food items and drinks with liquid nitrogen in the city has been done away with since Friday. Places that are popular with the city’s youth and children and often enticed customers with food and drinks laced with liquid nitrogen, have now stopped the practice since a 30-year-old Delhi resident underwent a surgery for removing a hole in his stomach caused by a drink laced with liquid nitrogen.

Such drinks and food items, which were once the talk of the town, vanished from the menu and the restaurants, too, got their staff to undergo special training and avoid spiking food with liquid nitrogen.

Places that are known for dishing out drinks and food items in such a unique manner are mostly vacant these days. Restaurant and pub owners are not happy with the decision to impose a ban on use of liquid nitrogen and said they are paying a heavy price for one isolated case of negligence.

The state government banned the use of liquid nitrogen after the Delhi man allegedly took a drink laced with liquid nitrogen at a Gurgaon pub. He later complained of severe abdominal cramps and was rushed to a private hospital. Doctors detected a hole in his stomach and he underwent a complex surgery.

“The Delhi resident suffered complications after consuming dry ice and not liquid nitrogen. The steward who served him was not aware of this. No police case was registered and the restaurant has not yet been identified,” Ashok Yadav, owner of Chinese Panda, Sector 29, said. HTC