women

Manjeet Singh

Maharashtra government seems to have made up its mind to make running a dance bar almost an impossible proposition. A draft of new rules and regulations for dance bars reviewed by this newspaper says that every dance bar must now have CCTVs with the feed beamed live to the nearest police station. Since dance bars were always a guilty pleasure, they are unlikely to attract any customers with cops watching the proceedings. Also, live pictures beamed into a police station could be open to abuse.The Supreme Court in October struck down a state government-imposed ban on dance bars as it violated bar dancers’ right to earn a livelihood. But the state government seems determined to not let dance bars stage a comeback. Among other regulations in the draft is a ceiling on the number of dancers on the floor at any given point of time and a minimum distance to be maintained between the performers and the audience. The draft says that there cannot be more than four dancers on the floor at any given point and a minimum distance of two metres must been maintained between performers and the customers.No woman below the age of 18 will be allowed to perform in a dance bar. All dance bars, as per the draft regulations, will now be no-smoking zones, and no customer will be allowed to enter dancers’ stage. “The new rules are aimed at making sure there is no vulgarity and the dancers’ dignity is not compromised in anyway. Also, there should be no scope for exploitation of,’’ said Principal Secretary (home) Vijay Satbir Singh.Sethi, the former president of the Bar Owners’ Association, said feared that the new rules will result in “more extortion” by the policemen.