Pune fire department says flaming shots in pubs are illegal, highly dangerous

Fire department officials have also asked the authorities to crack down on illegal hookah joints.

The Pune fire department has warned pubs in the city against serving fire shots to customers, dubbing such beverages as illegal and highly dangerous.

Fourteen people were killed in a fire at a Kamla Mills restaurant on Thursday night. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

The warning was issued in the wake of a blaze at a Kamala Mills restaurant in Mumbai, which killed 14 people on Thursday night. “Until now, we had been issuing no-objection certificates (NOCs) to restaurants only on the basis of kitchen fire-and-safety audits. Fire shots are illegal, and amount to violating the law,” Pune Municipal Corporation fire department chief Prashant Ranpise told the Hindustan Times.

Interestingly, no city pub has sought an NOC from the fire department until now. “There are around 30 pubs in the city. None of them have approached us for an NOC,” said Ranpise.

The city’s apex body of hoteliers has said the anomaly would be rectified soon. “NOCs from the fire department are mandatory for all restaurants and pubs,” said Ganesh Ganesh, president of the Pune Hoteliers Association.

Meanwhile, fire department officials and civil society members have asked the authorities to crack down on illegal hookah joints and sought a policy framework to prevent such incidents in the future.

Poona College principal Dr Anwar Shaikh, who has been spearheading a battle against illegal hookah joints, said: “The Mumbai incident has brought such illegalities into the open. Besides instituting a proper framework and following up on building permission laws, the authorities must ensure that bureaucrats implement the laws in all honesty. Pune, where many such violations occur, is a time bomb waiting to explode.”

Shaikh also asked the city fire department to re-audit all entertainment joints, and provide fact-based reports to the government. “This is necessary to save lives,” he said.

The Pune fire department sent notices to various catering establishments in the aftermath of the Kamala Mills blaze, asking them to upgrade their fire security equipment. Some of the institutions that came under its scanner were five-star and four-star hotels with restaurants and bars on their premises.

The city witnessed over 2,000 incidents of fire in 2017, until November. It records 2,500 blazes on an average every year.