Running a small marketing consultancy, this is a snapshot of how the alcohol ban is having a devastating impact on our business. I now wonder if we’ll make it out to the other side after the Covid-19 pandemic is over.
South African Breweries has said there are more than 250,000 livelihoods that are in their supply chain alone. When extrapolating this to the rest of the industry and the families that rely on these livelihoods – bartenders, restaurant owners, drivers, tavern employees, grape pickers, hops growers, bottlers – these numbers become evening more frightening.
Whatever these negative impacts are, which I believe speak to much larger societal issues caused by decades of poverty, corruption and crime, this is not the time, during a pandemic, to make policy decisions that impact businesses’ licences to trade, at this scale. Particularly, these decisions should not be made without due process and stakeholder input – with those very same stakeholders who invest in some of the biggest initiatives to tackle irresponsible trading and consumption.
I am not sure where we are going with this. When we all first went into lockdown, most of us believed that it would be tough, but it was something that could be overcome. But having walked the streets of the Cape Town CBD recently and seen boarded-up windows, “To Let” signs and well-loved bars and restaurants closed for good on every corner, I begin to wonder if we will make it out to the other side.
It’s not just us. A couple of weeks ago, another local event agency that had been around for eight years and with about 30 staff closed its doors for good. A majority of their clients were in the alcohol industry. They had also just had their best year ever. I spoke to another agency – one that manages in-store promotion for alcohol brands – and they are struggling to pay staff and suppliers this month. Next month will be worse.
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