CHENNAI: A section of residents of Palaniandavan Koil Street in Perambur led a flash demonstration on Tuesday morning against a liquor outlet run by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) in their locality.The shop was being shifted into a new building adjacent to their houses when they decided to resist the move. Jyothi, a housewife living in the slums behind the building, said that the people in the slum wanted the outlet to be shifted elsewhere as they feared that it would be of nuisance value. Our children go to school through that street. Besides, the bar that will be located on the first floor above the outlet would pose danger to our children if anybody threw empty liquor bottles. A half lit cigarette would be enough to spark off a fire near our tenements, Jyothi reasoned.She said that the shop was being shifted from the previous evening. In the morning, about 50 women from the locality and 20 men gathered in front of the new location for the outlet and registered their protest against the move.Jyothi said that at least 15 families lived in the slum tenements would be put to peril if the outlet and the bar were shifted to the building. She further reasoned that the area had a clinic, a jewellery store, a laboratory and many other public facilities where people frequent. Putting up a liquor outlet and a bar would only cause inconvenience to the people accessing these facilities.Jyothi claimed that she had the support of traders’ union leader T Vellayan and his son Raja. She said that the local residents were planning to have a demonstration on Wednesday where Vellayan and Raja would participate.TASMAC officials, on the other hand, said that the new shop, which was coming up barely 100 metres away from an old shop (no. 204), did not flout any norm. The officials said that the residents could have been provoked by vested interests to oppose the new shop.
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