Dance bars: India - Revision history

Jyoti: /* SC scraps Maha orchestra bar gender cap */

2022-02-20T20:28:52Z

‎SC scraps Maha orchestra bar gender cap

Jyoti: /* 2019: SC allows dance bars to reopen */

2022-02-20T20:25:35Z

‎2019: SC allows dance bars to reopen

Pdewan: /* Ban on dance bars (in Maharashtra) */

2022-02-20T00:00:20Z

‎Ban on dance bars (in Maharashtra)

Jyoti at 22:51, 30 March 2019

2019-03-30T22:51:41Z

Pdewan: /* CCTV footage and the law */

2019-03-25T15:50:13Z

‎CCTV footage and the law

Pdewan: /* Alcohol in dance bars: SC faults Maharashtra law */

2019-03-25T15:48:32Z

‎Alcohol in dance bars: SC faults Maharashtra law

Jyoti: /* 2019/ SC strikes down ban on dance norms */

2019-01-27T13:27:17Z

‎2019/ SC strikes down ban on dance norms

Jyoti: /* 2015/ Stayed by SC */

2019-01-27T13:26:08Z

‎2015/ Stayed by SC

Jyoti: /* Stayed by SC/ 2015 */

2019-01-26T17:33:28Z

‎Stayed by SC/ 2015

Pdewan: /* =Stayed by SC/ 2015 */

2019-01-24T09:23:27Z

‎=Stayed by SC/ 2015

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 ==SC scraps Maha orchestra bar gender cap==
 [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/article-share?article=20_02_2022_015_012_cap_TOI  AmitAnand Choudhary, February 22, 2022: ''The Times of India'']
 New Delhi: The Supreme Court has scrapped the gender cap imposed by Maharashtra authorities which limit the number of male and female performers in orchestra bars to four each, saying practices or rules rooted in historical prejudices, gender stereotypes and paternalism have no place in society.
  As per the conditions imposed by the Mumbai police on restaurants and bars, only eight artistes or singers are permitted on the stage with equal number of female and male performers. There are over 250 establishments which have taken licence for holding orchestral shows.
  Holding the condition as illegal and void, a bench of Justices KM Joseph and S Ravindra Baht said the order on gender-cap (i. e. four females and four males, in any performance) appears to be the product of a stereotypical view that women who perform in bars and establishments belong to a certain class of society which should be dispelled.
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 DANCE BARS: INDIA]]
 [[Category:Law,Constitution,Judiciary|D DANCE BARS: INDIA
 DANCE BARS: INDIA]]

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 It also set aside the rule which prohibited customers from tipping dancing girls directly. The condition that only a person with ‘good character’ and with no criminal antecedents is eligible to get licence was also set aside by the SC which said these expressions are capable of any interpretation and prone to be misused as per the whims and fancy of government officials.
-[[Category:Dance|D
+==SC scraps Maha orchestra bar gender cap==
 DANCE BARS: INDIA]]
-[[Category:India|D
+[[Category:India|D DANCE BARS: INDIA
 DANCE BARS: INDIA]]
-[[Category:Law,Constitution,Judiciary|D
+[[Category:Law,Constitution,Judiciary|D DANCE BARS: INDIA
 DANCE BARS: INDIA]]

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 The accused have been booked under various sections of the IPC and also under the Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women (working therein) Act, 2016.
-=Ban on dance bars (in Maharashtra)=
+=Ban/ restrictions on dance bars (in Maharashtra)=
 ==2015/ Stayed by SC==
 [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=SC-strikes-down-ban-on-dance-bars-in-16102015001055 ''The Times of India''], Oct 16 2015
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 It also set aside the rule which prohibited customers from tipping dancing girls directly. The condition that only a person with ‘good character’ and with no criminal antecedents is eligible to get licence was also set aside by the SC which said these expressions are capable of any interpretation and prone to be misused as per the whims and fancy of government officials.
 =Alcohol in dance bars=

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 [[Category:Dance |D ]]
 [[Category:Law,Constitution,Judiciary |D ]]
 =Ban on dance bars (in Maharashtra)=

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 The bench, however, was not convinced with his arguments and said it was highly paradoxical. “You can put other conditions but you cannot say that liquor cannot be served in dance bars. You should take other steps to protect the dignity of women and grant them shelter,“ the bench said. Regarding CCTV cameras, the court said such cameras could at most be installed at the entry points of bars and not inside.
-=CCTV footage and the law=
+=CCTV footage in dance bars=
 [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Live-footage-will-violate-bar-patrons-privacy-SC/articleshow/51232801.cms ''The Times of India''], Mar 3, 2016

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 It also set aside the rule which prohibited customers from tipping dancing girls directly. The condition that only a person with ‘good character’ and with no criminal antecedents is eligible to get licence was also set aside by the SC which said these expressions are capable of any interpretation and prone to be misused as per the whims and fancy of government officials.
-=Alcohol in dance bars: SC faults Maharashtra law=
+=Alcohol in dance bars=
 [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=SC-calls-Maha-law-absurd-allows-booze-in-22092016013021  AmitAnand Choudhary, SC calls Maha law absurd, allows booze in dance bars, Sep 22 2016 : The Times of India]

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 According to Thakur, SC has endorsed three years of imprisonment for owners of bars where dancers indulge in ‘obscene’ actions. “How can anyone define obscenity? It’s a risky affair. We’d rather stay closed than spend our lives in jail,” said Thakur, who is president of the association and leading the battle.
-==2019/ SC strikes down ban on dance norms==
+==2019: SC allows dance bars to reopen==
 [https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2019%2F01%2F18&entity=Ar02315&sk=7D3DABCB&mode=text&fbclid=IwAR08HxCGA1dkN5BTQiaBzhx-D2ZE6get66ywOYxe_8RZn2LXm96vkluhM1Y  AmitAnand Choudhary, Relief for dance bars as SC strikes down Maha norms, January 18, 2019: ''The Times of India'']

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:26, 27 January 2019
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	This is the second time the court has come to the rescue of bar girls who lost their livelihood. It had declared the ban unconstitutional in 2013 as well.		This is the second time the court has come to the rescue of bar girls who lost their livelihood. It had declared the ban unconstitutional in 2013 as well.

		+	==2015-19: What dance bars did during the ban==
		+	[https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIDEL%2F2019%2F01%2F18&entity=Ar00200&sk=783951FC&mode=text&fbclid=IwAR3xWSb3Tscx1AuJ_jUEQqVYZAZqw0fFtyUL3aj10LVl2suIgfXsoadKGH8 Mohua Das, Mateen Hafeez & Chittaranjan Tembhekar, Some shut shop, others became ‘orchestra bars’, January 18, 2019: ''The Times of India'']
		+
		+
		+	''After The Ban, Mumbai’s Money-Spinning Dance Bars — Popular With Commoners, Cops And Dons — Struggled To Survive''
		+
		+	When lights went off on a chapter of Mumbai’s nightlife, its dance bars, some shut shop, many scaled back while others reinvented themselves to operate in a shadowy zone where the rules were blurred.
		+
		+	Deepa Bar in the suburb of Vile Parle has fallen into disrepair, shut for years after a police probe pointed to its link with the Bollywood-cricketer-bookie-underworld nexus in 2005, when it was found that Tarannum, their dancer, was acting as a conduit between bookies and cricketers. Karishma, a once-famous joint in Dadar in central Mumbai, is now a regular family restaurant. But Topaz in Grant Road turned into an ‘orchestra bar’. One-time hot spots like Carnival in Worli and Baywatch in Dadar — each did big business of around Rs 4 crore every year — too, have become orchestra bars. Each of them employed 130 people. Now, their businesses and employees have been halved with the ban seeing 65,000 women and 45,000 men lose their jobs overnight. Many of them left the city.
		+
		+
		+	As the name suggests, a majority that morphed into ‘orchestra bars’ provide live entertainment — legally or on the sly — where a bevy of non-singers are paraded and made to croon and sway to music played by a live band. Bouncers hover at the sides of the stage, often trying to strike a deal or collecting money from patrons with the excuse of it being the crooner’s birthday.
		+
		+	In the days before the shutters came down on the colourful dance bars, these spaces had grown to become an integral part of Mumbai’s leisure industry. The ’70s saw the arrival of dance bars in the city and the ’90s witnessed their modernisation. The first one — Sonia Mahal — opened its doors in 1972 in one of the many office towers at Nariman Point. It was owned by a certain Jagtiani –— an ageing gentleman with a heart problem — who often joked that the dancers were his ‘pacemaker’.
		+
		+	The city’s very first dance bar was designed unaesthetically, but one-time patrons say that the beautiful women who danced there compensated for the lack of ambience. In the shady corners of the dance bar, deals would be signed or broken. The prospect of bumping into the famous denizens of the underworld on a late night wasn’t too far-fetched, with women actually waiting for the bhais since they were the ones with the moolah. It was in Sonia Mahal that the first fight between Dawood’s brother Sabir and Pathan gangsters took place.
		+
		+	The trend set by Jagtiani was soon picked up by the ambitious Shettys who sniffed big money in the business. If Suresh Shetty of Ghatkopar went a step further and opened a cabaret joint called Meghraj, where bikini-clad women danced to Boney M, Shekhar Shetty started the lavish Samudra dance bar in Mumbai Central that became such a hit that even the paanwallas outside managed sell 300 paans a night to customers. Sangam in Prabhadevi was the first to introduce battery-operated mini fans to blow money on the dancers. The police, too, loved these bars since they were a huge source of ‘hafta’.
		+
		+	The one that brought a bit of class to this trade was Topaz Bar and Restaurant, near Novelty Cinema on Grant Road. The opulent bar with gilded marble decorations, glass and mirrors and expensive drapes with three VIP halls and one for commoners used to rake in an average of Rs 5 lakh per night. Today, the plush dance bar that became the favourite haunt for diamond merchants, foreign tourists and visiting cricketers stands hidden behind a tangle of tarpaulin sheets and a jumble of shops on the pavement. The number of employees has dropped from 70 to 32.
		+
		+	“The ban severely affected our business,” said one of the employees when TOI visited the bar on Thursday. He had already received the news of the Supreme Court paving the way for dance bars in the city once more but wasn’t clear about the new terms.
		+
		+	But whether Topaz will bounce back to its days of shimmying women under shimmering lights is uncertain. “We open shutters at 3pm. We have around 15 singers who sing from 9.30pm to 1.30am,” said the worker. Although his employer had applied for permission to resume operating as a dance bar after SC’s decision in 2016 to allow dance bars to operate, it was in vain.
		+
		+	Bharat Thakur of the Dance Bars Association attached to Ahar said several bars such as Deepa in Vile Parle have shut shop. “According to my information, the place has been rented out to a yoga centre and the owners have moved on to real estate business,” he said.
		+
		+	The apex court’s judgment on Thursday has revived hopes in the hotel fraternity. However, bar owners said conditions such as closure at 11.30pm and ‘no obscene dances’ would discourage them from re-opening.
		+
		+	“We were flourishing in Dadar when the dance bar business was at its peak. Now, we are a restaurant, just managing to survive. Our experience post the ban tells us not to go back to the dance bar business at all,” said Manjeet Singh Sethi, Karishma’s owner.
		+
		+	According to Thakur, SC has endorsed three years of imprisonment for owners of bars where dancers indulge in ‘obscene’ actions. “How can anyone define obscenity? It’s a risky affair. We’d rather stay closed than spend our lives in jail,” said Thakur, who is president of the association and leading the battle.

	==2019/ SC strikes down ban on dance norms==		==2019/ SC strikes down ban on dance norms==

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 =Ban on dance bars (in Maharashtra)=
-==Stayed by SC/ 2015=
+==Stayed by SC/ 2015==
 [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=SC-strikes-down-ban-on-dance-bars-in-16102015001055 ''The Times of India''], Oct 16 2015