(6/6/2009)
The Bali Tourism Service (DIPARDA) is urging the Bali Customs and Excise office to halt sweeping raids being conducted against Bali hotels and restaurants in the current drive to halt the sale of wine and liquor bearing counterfeit customs stamps.
The Chief Tourism Official for Bali, Ida Bagus Subhisku, issued a statement of June 2, 2009, underlining the fact that Bali's hotels and restaurants purchase their alcohol supplies from official distributors appointed by the government. According to Subhisku, if there is in fact smuggled alcohol being used, it is the distributors who should be under scrutiny and not Bali's hotels and restaurants.
Quoted in berita.bali.com, Subhisku said: "Now it is the distributors who must be chased, not people from our (tourism) industry. This is a lopsided approach."
Subhisku said his call for end to sweeping by Customs and Excise officials of hotels and restaurants is based on the high demands for alcoholic beverages as Bali enters into its busiest business period or high season.
Up until June 2, 2009, DIPARDA recorded around 13 hotels and restaurants where custom's officials had seize liquor stocks in the course of their continuing "sweeping" raids.
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