In a massive blow for imbibers, beer and alcohol sales have been banned in Zimbabwe without any advance notice or warning from the authorities.
The news that beer and alcohol sales have been banned slowly filtered onto social media after manyl people were advised that they could not purchase any alcohol at local supermarkets and grocery shops. Almost all the local supermarkets have signs and banners warning that the sale of beer and alcoholic products has been temporarily banned/suspended.
A friend send this to me saying that it was taken today at Bon Marche Avondale.
Are alcohol sales suspended, or it is just this shop? pic.twitter.com/KJWjQlfzGJ
— Hopewell Chin’ono (@daddyhope) January 8, 2021
It is confirmed that alcohol sales have been suspended.
It is going to hurt the industry, the workers in alcohol outlets & more importantly, the government itself through reduction of taxes.
Has a study been done about the correlation between alcohol consumption &infection rates? https://t.co/RY4fy7KUVj— Hopewell Chin’ono (@daddyhope) January 8, 2021
However, at the time of publishing, the government was yet to issue any form of communication about the sale of beer and alcoholic products. This has led some to opine that perhaps the authorities wanted to catch people off guard to prevent them from hoarding and stockpiling beer and alcohol.
Zimbabwe may have copied the example of neighbours South Africa, who always ban the sale of alcohol when imposing lockdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19.
South Africa banned alcohol when President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government imposed an adjusted level 3 lockdown at the end of December.
Zimbabwe on the other hand had never imposed a total ban on the sale of beer and alcohol, choosing to suspend the operation of bars, bottle stores and nightclubs.
However, with the spike in Covid-19 cases in the last few weeks coupled with the emergence of new Covid-19 strains which are reported to spread much more rapidly, the authorities may have decided to ban the sale of beer and alcohol.
Ironically, the South African government has been dragged to the courts by South African Breweries (SAB) which is challenging the constitutionality of the country’s latest alcohol ban.
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