Revelers beware, big brother will be watching

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU

KENYA: When you go drinking alcohol this festive season, beware: Big Brother will be watching.

That’s because the authorities are working on a plan that will require all bars, restaurants and hotels that sell alcohol in major urban centres to be fitted with closed-circuit television cameras.

The cameras will then be linked to the Kenya Police command Centre. The idea according to people familiar with the plan is to help authorities hunt down criminals in bars and to keep tabs on the opening and closing hours, to make sure that the hours are in line with licensed hours of operation.

The Standard on Sunday is aware that the plan, dubbed, ‘Steam’ will be launched within the Christmas Week, when many Kenyans and tourists go into partying overdrive.

It will be the toughest Christmas for many Kenyans who take alcohol, because, the drive comes at a time when the police have reactivated breathalysers –to gauge the drink levels of motorists—in a move to tame road accidents.

Sources within the National Authority for the Campaign against Drug Abuse told The Standard on Sunday, that anyone who wants to operate an outlet that sells alcohol would have to install the CCTV. “We will monitor the outlets through a national alcohol control and command centre that will be linked online with the Kenyan police,” reads a brief about the drive.

The cameras will make sure bar brawls and fights in nightclubs are stopped. The authorities also hope to capture those criminals who lace drinks of other patrons with drugs --or with alcohol, if it is a non-alcoholic drink) -- before robbing or raping the drugged patrons. Nacada chairman John Mututho confirmed that such a drive was in the works, and its launch was likely to happen on Monday or Tuesday.

Power to arrest

The Alcoholic Drinks Control Act gives the police the power to arrest “any person found to be drunk and incapable or drunk and disorderly in or near a street, road, licensed premises, shop, hotel or other public place”. The law prescribes a fine of Sh500 or a three-month jail term.

The law, eponymously known as the ‘Mututho laws’, is also explicit that if barmen don’t block rowdy revelers from disturbing other patrons, then, the barmen too will be arrested. Also, those who sell alcohol to people who are already drunk, in a bid to cash in on the festive mood, will also be arrested and prosecuted.

“Any licensee who sells an alcoholic drink to a person already in a state of intoxication or by any means encourages or incites him to consume an alcoholic drink commits an offence,” reads a clause in the law, that goes ahead to prescribe a maximum fine of Sh500,000 or a maximum jail-term of three years will be slapped on the barman for the offence.

Another source familiar with the anti-alcohol campaign told The Standard on Sunday that Nacada has also launched a fresh investigation into authenticity of licenses of bars in Nairobi.