MAPUSA
The tragic fire at Birch by Romeo Lane has once again exposed a truth that coastal Goa has lived with for years: sealing premises and issuing demolition notices may create headlines, but they have done little to dismantle the ecosystem that allows illegal nightclubs to thrive.
Across the Anjuna-Vagator-Calangute belt, village panchayats routinely issue trade licences for “restaurants” that openly operate as nightclubs. Mandatory permissions “ fire safety NOCs, excise licences, CRZ clearances “ are either absent, incomplete or obtained retrospectively after accidents, court interventions or public outrage. Enforcement, when it comes, is reactive, selective and temporary.
The record shows that panchayats can act.
Following the Bombay High Court’s suo motu intervention two years ago, Anjuna panchayat issued notices to 175 illegal structures, identified 71 violations on the beach line and ordered demolition of 45. Some structures were sealed, a few were demolished.
Yet most survived “ either because notices were quietly withdrawn or because stays were obtained from higher authorities. What began as a judicially driven clean-up eventually dissolved into procedural limbo.
This pattern is revealing. Panchayats, which are constitutionally the first line of local governance, rarely act suo motu. Action usually follows court pressure, activism or public tragedy. Even then, enforcement appears calibrated ” enough to show compliance, but never enough to disrupt the larger business model of nightlife tourism that fuels local revenue, political patronage and, as residents openly allege, extortion networks.
Selective enforcement
Former sarpanches have admitted as much, pointing fingers at a wider administrative design where other departments prefer panchayats to issue demolition orders, allowing parallel negotiations to “save” establishments. It is an arrangement where everyone plays their part, ensuring the system survives intact. As one local bluntly put it: “Hamam mein sab nange hain.”
“Whenever the panchayat carries out demolitions, it is only small-time businesses that bear the brunt. The influential and powerful, despite blatant illegalities, are allowed to go scot-free,” said a former sarpanch of Anjuna village.
Anjuna Sarpanch Surendra Goverkar said the panchayat has not yet initiated action but will do so after the Zilla Panchayat polls. “The panchayat body will first pass a resolution and then begin issuing show-cause notices to commercial establishments along the coastal belt,” Goverkar said.
The contrast between Anjuna and Calangute is instructive. Calangute panchayat has at least initiated showcause notices against 20 establishments, demanding fire, excise, health and FDA NOCs.
Yet even here, enforcement has been deferred “ action promised only after ZP elections. Politics, timing and optics continue to dictate safety.
“We will take action against establishments that have failed to obtain mandatory licences. These units will be sealed,” said Joseph Sequeira, sarpanch of Calangute.
Breaking the cycle enabled by system
The larger question, therefore, is not whether illegalities exist “ by conservative estimates, nearly 100 establishments operate as nightclubs in the Anjuna“Vagator belt, with most carrying some form of violation.
The real question is whether the system wants this to end.
Illegal structures generate employment, tourism revenue and steady under-the-table earnings. Sealing orders can be lifted, demolition notices can be stayed, and licences can be regularised. The goose that lays the golden egg is never meant to be slaughtered “ only occasionally frightened.
Lack of will
So who will bell the cat?
The panchayats have shown they lack either the will or the autonomy to finish the job. Line departments act selectively. Political considerations override public safety.
That leaves only two actors with the capacity to break the cycle: the government, through sustained, coordinated enforcement beyond token actions; or the courts, through continued monitoring that prevents violations from slipping back into normalcy.
Until then, sealing drives and demolition orders will remain symbolic gestures “ loud enough to reassure the public after each tragedy, but carefully contained so that business, and the system that feeds off it, continues as usual.
