Raid nets traders’ illegal liquor
A JOINT operation by the Department of Trade and Industry, SAPS, Western Cape Liquor Authority Board and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries resulted in a raid on illegal traders across the province at the weekend.
More than 42 liquor traders in the Cape Town CBD, Khayelitsha, Philippi East, Gugulethu, Nyanga and surrounding areas were targeted, with fines to the value of R10 600 issued to non-compliant liquor traders.
Officials confiscated 1 873.775 litres of alcohol, seven illegal liquor traders were closed down and five people were searched for possession of drugs and dangerous weapons.
National Liquor Authority (NLA) chief director Prea Ramdhuny said: “The operation was aimed to enforce compliance with the Liquor Act, address the increasing number of unlicensed traders, non-adherence to the licence conditions, trading hours and enforce compliance to liquor traders and distributors.
“The raids were conducted in terms of the Liquor Act, which empowers an NLA inspector to conduct inspections and to issue compliance notices to registrants who fail to adhere to their registration conditions and to produce relevant documents as prescribed by law.”
She added that unannounced raids were essential to ensure that distributors were selling liquor to licensed persons, but the department still faced a challenge in regulating liquor.
Colonel Sello Motau of the SAPS National Liquor Control office, said that police first assess crime tendencies in the province – and the criminal conduct in places that are most raided are influenced by high levels of drug and alcohol abuse.
“It was also found that the cited areas have a large number of illegal and unlicensed liquor traders, which are supplying liquor to young people and visibly pregnant women; this is a contravention of the norms and standards set out in the National Liquor Act.
“Further, these areas are known for gangsterism and abuse of drugs by young people, thus there was a need for awareness and education about the effects of alcohol,” said Motau.