Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 Bans ‘Happy Hour’, Hotels Protest

⭕ Sri Lanka's National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol bans ‘Happy Hour’ discounts, threatening a 50,000 rupee fine per director for violations.

⭕ The practice was viewed as a violation of the NATA Act, which states that alcohol cannot be offered at a discounted price.

⭕ Happy hour is a marketing mechanism where hotels, restaurants, or bars offer reduced prices on alcoholic drinks to draw in more business before or after peak hours. It's a common practice seen across the world.

⭕ Hotels are selling legal, tax-paid alcohol and paying 250K to 1 million rupees for liquor licenses annually.

⭕ This practice does not negatively affect government revenue at all.

⭕ Applying this ill-thought-out law to hotels and restaurants will drastically impact the revenue of these businesses.

⭕ Appeals have been made to the Sri Lanka Tourist Development Authority and State Minister of Finance, Shehan Semasinghe, for resolution. Hopefully, this will be resolved by rescinding the order and properly amending the NATA law.