BENGALURU: As many as 340 pubs and bars , and 19 star hotels across the city including the pub streets of MG Road Church Street and Brigade Road have been told to stop selling alcoholic beverages from the midnight of June 30.The excise department has formally issued notices to all of them in deference to a Supreme Court order that bars sale of alcohol within a distance of 500 metres from national highways . But owners of these outlets are expecting a last-minute miracle. Meanwhile, some of them have reduced their inventory.Collin Timms, co-owner of Pecos, a pub, said the order is going to hurt not only his branch on Brigade Road but a big number of outlets in the City. “The apex court's intention is to stop the accidents on highways and the court, in my opinion, did not mean to close down the liquor businesses within the city ,“ he said. “Bengaluru is a global and world-class city and many people come here hoping to be part of a world-class lifestyle. They are sure to be disappointed and we only hope for an early resolution to this crisis,“ Timms said.Shivakumar Gangadhar, owner of SLMS Wine Paradise on the international airport road, said whenever there was a crisis, the state government would wait till the last moment to take a decision. The Supreme Court passed the order in December last year and modified it in March. The state had a lot of time to make necessary changes to remove the legal difficulties and facilitate the business.About 10 days ago, the government wrote to the National Highways Authority (NHAI), recommending a set of roads to be taken off the national highways list. The liquor industry is livid that the government could have acted on getting these stretches of roads denotified long ago but has pushed liquor retailers into a crisis.In the core city area alone, as many as 133 liquor shops and pubs will face closure.“Relocating our outlets is next to impossible because there are lots of educational institutions and places of worship. We are hoping the government will do something,“ a bar owner on Church Street said.M Lakshminarayana, additional chief secretary heading the public works department, said all the roads within the city limits are not highways as they are maintained by BBMP and not NHAI. “We have sent a recommending favouring the denotification of 77.6 km of national highways cutting through the city,“ he said.National highways (NH) 44, 75, 209, 275, 4 and 7 branch out in six directions from the General Post Office in the heart of the city.An excise department official said: “We have issued notices and we will freeze all alcoholic beverage stock on July 1 and allow their sale only either on their relocation or on removal of legal difficulties.“