Liquor board won’t extend liquor trading times for ANC birthday bash

The Gauteng Liquor Board’s (GLB) on Wednesday backtracked on its decision to extend trading times for licensed in-house liquor traders for the African National Congress’ 105 anniversary celebration at Orlando Stadium.

“The GLB had been inundated with applications for extensions of liquor trading times for this weekend and upon consideration had initially decided to apply its discretion in favour of relaxing liquor trading times to promote local tourism and the hospitality industry‚” the Department of Economic Development said.

“However‚ having considered feedback from the public and other key stakeholders‚ and after consultation with Gauteng MEC for Economic Development Lebogang Maile‚ the GLB wishes to announce that liquor trading times will no longer be extended for this coming weekend.

“All liquor traders in Gauteng will therefore be expected to operate according to their normal trading times and law enforcement agencies will be expected to enforce the law accordingly.”

Gauteng economic development MEC Lebogang Maile said: “Ours is a people centred government. Because we are a caring government‚ we always take inputs of the public at large seriously and respond accordingly. Even if we believed in the correctness of our decisions‚ we have a moral obligation to listen carefully to the reaction of the public that we serve and align our decisions accordingly.”