Pretoria - At least 100 owners of taverns and pubs in Mamelodi joined forces to pioneer a new way of dealing with eradicating alcohol abuse and gender-based violence and femicide.
These men and women who normally share the same township market, said they were tired of people using alcohol as a catalyst to commit acts that endanger the safety of the people who share a community with them.
President of the Concerned Tshwane Liquor Traders Association Oupa Mthombeni led the stakeholders engagement that made a resolution to go out and encourage all liquor traders in Tshwane townships to ban the sale of alcohol to known abusers.
Mthombeni said in the townships the people know each other and it was on that advantage they resolved to take a discriminatory, but good, approach to selling alcohol to customers.
He said a resolution was taken that those known for abusing alcohol and committing deviant acts under the influence of alcohol would be snubbed by tavern owners to show a more serious stance against alcohol abuse.
He said every tavern and pub in Tshwane must get to a point whereby they paste awareness messages about alcohol abuse and gender-based violence and femicide, just as they paste posters to advertise alcohol.
"We mean business this time. We are not going to allow people to use alcohol, which is our business, as an excuse to bring unrest to their families and their communities.
"Everyone must act responsibly, so that we can be like the rest of the world where a family or a priest can also visit a pub for food or coffee and not be exposed to indecent behaviour.
"That is what I wish for. For us to get to a place where we have changed the behaviour of our people. We want to involve the community as well to work with us because we cannot do this alone.
"We have the involvement and support of the South African Brewery but not so much law enforcement. With the local police it is almost like you have to chase them to work with you, whereas law enforcement is supposed to be a calling that makes a person want to engage in efforts and programmes to do good and protect society," said Mthombeni.
The liquor traders will be going across Mamelodi to distribute awareness posters to the taverns and pubs, and also educate other liquor traders to endorse this initiative.
Mthombeni said the initiative would spread across Tshwane to reach all the other townships like Atteridgeville, Hammanskraal, Soshanguve, Ga-Rankuwa and Mabopane.
Pretoria News