Lekopanye Mooketsi
25 November 2008
Botswana Police on Friday ordered the closure of the two nightclubs in the Gaborone West shopping complex, Satchmo's Jazz Cafe and Grand West around 10 pm and told patrons to leave.
Other patrons who turned up later were disappointed to find the two popular joints shut. However, after the police closed the nightclubs revellers staged their own parties in the parking lot, playing loud music from cars. People who were selling beer illegally made a killing from patrons in the car park as police did not harass revellers who were playing loud music from their parked vehicles.
The police maintained that they had to order the two nightclubs shut because they were operating without trading licences. The police decision comes just after the Lobatse High Court granted an interim order last week to suspend the new liquor regulations following a case that has been lodged by four nightclub owners. The nightclub operators are praying that the new liquor regulations should be declared discriminatory and ultra vires, and consequently set aside.
They argue that the regulations do not affect businesses selling liquor such as hotels. The applicants insist that by reducing the trading hours, the new regulations infringe upon the existing rights that have been conferred on them by the Trade and Liquor Act of 1986.
The applicants are further praying that the court should order the Ministry of Trade and Industry to issue them with their nightclub licences, which they have
long applied for. They also want the continued disruption of their businesses by the police to be declared unlawful. They also applied for an interdiction order against the police.
Gaborone lawyer Yul Moncho, who is representing the closed clubs, said the police
action was in contempt of court. He said on Monday that he will institute contempt of court proceedings against the Attorney General, the Commissioner of Police and the police officers conducting the operation.
Moncho said the court has ordered that his client's operations should not be disrupted.
He said they have submitted documents to the courts, which shows that the client has applied for renewal of licence. He said they have been authorised to continue to operate while waiting for the licences.
Moncho said the court order also addresses the continued harassment of his clients by the police. But Gaborone West Police Station commander Bonnie Bareki said the two nightclubs do not have trading licences and dismissed charges of police harassment at the two establishments.
Bareki said they had not been harassing nightclub owners but were enforcing the law. He said police officers could not be said to have defied the court order because the two nightclubs were operating without licenses
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