Chavez's Easter booze ban

By Stone Martindale Apr 5, 2007, 4:23 GMT

No hooch says Chavez.. EPA/HANDOUT

Venezuela's government, run by a leftist, was left dry due to bar-owners being ordered to obey an alcohol ban over Holy Week and Easter weekend, forcing drinkers in the whisky crazed Catholic country to use covert methods in search of a fix.

The ban outlaws drinking alcohol from 5:00 pm to 10:00 am each night from March 31, and all day from the following Thursday to Easter Sunday, reports Reuters.

Apparently the suds maker Cerverceria Polar had to cancel a series of festive events it had planned for the week on the tourist island of Margarita and other resorts.

In a shop in the neighborhood of La Carlota, near President Hugo Chavez's residence in Caracas, drinkers have taken to ordering "a kilo of beans" from their grocer, code for a six pack of beer.

Reuters reports business owners in seaside resorts have complained they will lose up to 70 percent of their business during the ban.

Caracas' established bar and restaurant-owners in the coastal capital were not fazed, however, saying that in parts of the city the police will be unable to enforce the dry-out.

Pedro Carreno, the interior and justice minister for socialist President Hugo Chavez, has championed the ban, insisting: "You don't have to have alcohol to have a good time."

The finance ministry meanwhile has announced new taxes to curb the country's taste for mature Scottish imports. Who knew Venezuela was the world's biggest consumer of 18-year-old whisky from the highlands.