Ban no bar: how money flows through dance bars

BARRING RULES: The money raked in through tips at dance bars was divided so that for every hundred rupees, 30 went to the bar owner and 70 to the bar girls.

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Mumbai: Even after bar dancing was banned two years ago, the business is down but not quite out for the bar owners and the police yet.

There was a time when the bar visitors regularly took to the dance floors with fat bundles of notes in their hands. They used to shower money over the girls who entertained them by dancing to the latest Hindi songs.

The money was good for the bar girls and the job had a facade of respectability.

A former bar girl, Sapna, says, “I used to work hard to earn that money. Don’t they dance in the movies and show their talent to people? Similarly, we used to please people with our dancing talent."

So how was the income raked in through the generous bar tips divided?

For each 100 rupee that was showered on the girls, 30 went to the bar owner for providing the premises. The rest of the amount went to the girls who were the main attraction that drew in the crowds.

It was a system, in which even the officials thrived by looking the other way, a reason some believe to be the chief motivation behind the ban.

A bar owner, Praveen Aggarwal, says, “The reason is money and corruption. It is undue harassment for the bar owners and the girls.”

Sources say that even though the business has been hit, the cash outflow continues.

Small to medium sized bars continue to pay a monthly cut to the police in the range of 25 to 30 thousand rupees. Large bars pay as much as up to 1 Lakh rupees as cover per month even in the these lean times.

Apart from that, the police get a whopping 20 per cent kick back on all sales after the 9:30 pm deadline.