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As telecom and heavy engineering companies are down-sizing or are on the verge of shutting down due to the economic slowdown, pubs and restaurants doing vibrantly well in Bengaluru are shutting down too. Although for a very different reason.The latest casualty is the almost seven-year-old, born-in-Bengaluru brand, Monkey Bar (a part of the Olive group of restaurants). The city’s first, which then went to the rest of India and established flourishing outlets, will shut its famous green doors on November 24.Monkey Bar, Indiranagar, is the latest, but not likely the last victim of the Licensing and Controlling of Places of Public Entertainment (City Order, 2005). The implementation of this could not be done in 2018 due to the elections. Later the SC upheld the 2005 rules, which means that pubs have to obtain license to play music.Says Manu Chandra, chef partner of Monkey Bar, “Over the last few months, because of having no music at all, the vibe at Monkey Bar, Indiranagar, had dulled down.We started losing a lot of money. That coupled with the viciousness with which the Indiranagar RWA attacked every business in the area with trumped up charges and went to court, had a lot to do with it. The court started issuing soft orders and making life impossible for restaurants. From the excise department to the BBMP to the electricity board, to the police, everyone started throwing rule books in our faces, not realising that most of these compliances should have been done by the building owners.” Chandra adds that it has now become untenable to run a business at benchmarks they had worked towards.“To rationalise the rule on music, it is still in the (police) commissioner’s hands, but he refuses to do it. Why is Bengaluru the only city that requires a license to play music? Successive governments in this city have been ignoring the fact that this is a sizable industry, which employs a lot of people. With the closure of restaurants, excise revenues will plummet, taxes that they generate from employment will plummet, the GST collection will plummet … I don’t know where the money to fix the roads and clear the garbage will come from.”Chandra says it’s easier to run a business in Dhaka,, Colombo andcompared to Bengaluru. “They’re far more cognisant of the fact that young hardworking people and the not-so-young too, need a place to let their hair down. You’re taking that away from them and creating an ecosystem of misery. They (the authorities) keep telling me that there is no music ban and that they’re asking us to be compliant. But why do I need an Occupancy Certificate (OC) to play music? We can’t get an OC, it’s impossible. I would go out on a limb and say that 80 to 90 percent of the buildings in this city have no OCs. So how are they running businesses?”Chandra adds that they have also had talks with the Indiranagar RWA and gone about looking for a solution in a civil and diplomatic manner. “The RWA is doing what it must. But if the government is going to be instigated to do this whenever someone throws a fit, when they themselves have given licenses to establishments, then this is hypocrisy at play. We have had meetings. Sent letters. We have been civil. Nobody cares.”Chandra says that he has no choice but to let his staff go. “In Indiranagar already, this will be the fourth or fifth shut down and there will be more. An order passed by the court is binding on the entire city. Bengaluru has not had a history of law and order. And the last few incidents that happened in pubs had nothing to do with the common man…”And as a last word, he adds, “Monkey Bar was 100% soundproof.”