The Supreme Court’s clarification enabling hotels and restaurants within the city to serve liquor has brought relief to the hospitality sector but Tamil Nadu hotels are awaiting instructions from the Excise Department.

T Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, GRT Hotels and Secretary, South India Hotel and Restaurant Association, told BusinessLine : “So far, we have not yet received any written or oral communication from the Excise Department.” “Unless it happens we have to maintain status quo,” he added.

Hotels and restaurants across India stopped serving liquor after a Supreme Court ruling directed the hotels and restaurants within 500 metres of national highways to stop sale of alcohol in April. This order was extended to highways within city limits which resulted in huge loss of business for the hotels.

Natarajan said around 662 hotels closed liquor bars in Tamil Nadu and most businesses went to neighbouring metros for conferences and events.“Business in speciality restaurants too went down by 30 per cent,” he said.

Speciality restaurants, where food is paired with wine or other spirits usually does 1.5 lakh orders a day. But it came down to 40,000 post the ban. Transactions too halved. According to another hotelier in Chennai, the losses were to the tune of over ₹2 crore, which might not be so easy to recover even if the ban is lifted.

Anil Chanda of ITC Grand Chola in Chennai said the food and beverage business fell dramatically by 30-40 per cent. “Even with the recent ruling, we need more clarity from the State before we can rejoice,” Chanda said.

Debopriyo Sen, Director of Sales and Marketing, Westin Chennai, said though the latest move is exciting, the hotel suffered a huge loss over the last five months due to cancellation of conferences and events on account of liquor ban. Even conferences that were booked a year ago like annual meetings were cancelled on account of liquor ban, he added.