VILLAINS TURNED HEROES: The partner of Devil’s and Chawala, Vipin Singh addressing the media on Wednesday in a Calangute hotel. Naresh Gidwani partner of Tao and Tropical, Harish Nilikar of 39 and Three Kings, Deepak Desai of Baywatch and others were
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Till yesterday there were ‘villains’ of an unholy trade but on Wednesday the much-maligned club owners of Calangute opened out stating that they were actually the ‘good guys’ as their business was legit and the girls employed in the clubs/restaurants were waitresses and not dancers.
The club owners also said that there were legally operating bar and restaurants but it was wrongly coined as dance bars.
The owners cum partners of at least a dozen of such clubs in the beach village further said that they were also stakeholders and catered to the tourism industry.
“Our business is not illegal. Just because of certain touts who indulge in unscrupulous behaviour, our businesses are being targeted. We have all the permissions to conduct our operations which we have been running for the last several years,” said Vipin Singh, a partner of Devil’s restaurant, which has been in the eye of the storm.
The owners claimed that some goons have been moving around with a crowd along the Calangute-Baga belt and trespassing into their properties and even going to the extent of assaulting their house keeping staff.
They also singled out a local resident Sunny Kandolkar for allegedly trying to extort money and further alleged that there were several cases against him.
“These goons are trespassing and damaging our property and beating our staff on duty. How can they take the law into their hands?” Singh said.
The club owners admit that the local panchayat has issued them a licence to operate a bar and restaurant but tried to rationalise that other big and popular clubs like Tito’s and Hammers have also been issued similar licences but nobody was questioning them for organising dance parties.
“The big clubs allow entry only for couples so where will the rest of the crowd who are single go? We offer an opportunity to such stags who can come and have a good time in our clubs,” the partner of Devil’s restaurant said.
The club owners, however, were very cautious not to antagonise the political establishment and gave all clear to the local MLA and the panchayat in the ongoing attack against their businesses.
“The local MLA and the panchayat are not involved in this but some local goons are creating trouble to extort money. The sarpanch has issued notices and even conducted inspection of our clubs. But even after that the goons are roaming on roads,” Singh said.
According to Naresh Gidwani, a partner of Tao and Tropical clubs, all the notices that were issued to them were about illegal structures and none have said that their business was illegal.
The owners have also said they wanted to support the government and the police in their action against the touts.
“Touts should be punished and we are ready to help,” they said.
Sources informed that a kin of a politician has running partnership in a couple of these clubs in Calangute-Baga but preferred to stay away from the spotlight.
