Bottle store owners face scrutiny

Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter

The City of Harare has urged people operating bottle stores to reapply for their business licences following the expiry of most of them last month.

City of Harare spokesperson, Mr Stanley Gama said failure to have operating licences will result in the bottle stores being closed down.

“Residents have been complaining about the sprouting of bottle stores in the city.

“So many of them have come up and their business licences, most of them expired in June so what we want is for them to come one by one to reapply for their licences because we are reconsidering bottle store licences because of the chaos they are causing in town; they are closing late.

“In other areas they are causing serious traffic congestion so they have to come one by one and explain themselves,” he said.
Mr Gama said there is need to control the number of bottle stories operating in the city.

“We want a clean city, we want a proper city. We don’t want a city full of bottle stores causing chaos. A city should be sacred, a city should not be taken like a playground. So we will make sure most of these bottle stores cease to exist. There are too many of these bottle stores. How they came up, we don’t know and we are still investigating but they are coming. We are saying they must come one by one for licences then we will talk to them. So without operating licenses, we will be forced to close them down. We will make it difficult for them to get licences.”