Calangute “Ladies Dance Bar” owners offering big bucks in bribes to restart operations

CALANGUTE, GOA: According to reliable information obtained by this website, the ladies/dance bar operators in the Arpora-Baga-Calangute-Candolim belt of North Goa, who were shut down in December of last year have now got together as a group and are offering big bucks (running into crores) to various ‘persons in power’ to re-start their operations.

It may be recalled that on orders of the High Court, 11 dance bars in North Goa were sealed by the authorities in December 2023. The eleven establishments which were sealed include Posh Nosh (Baga), Devil’s Bar, Cooda C/o. Mufasa, Mehfil, Three Kings, Next Level c/o Jupiter, Norms Pub/Club, No Escape, Black Heart/Break Down, 39 Steps, Tropical Lounge and Plantain Leaf. Most of these dance or ladies bars have their Panchayat (Trade) license and Alcohol (Excise) license in the name of a local Goan, but are ‘rented out’ at huge premiums to non-Goan businessmen, who in turn further rent them out to goondas and thugs to rake in the moolah by duping guests and running sex and drug rackets.

Former Calangute panchayat member Sudesh Mayekar and Kundan Kerkar, both of Naika Waddo, Calangute in their High Court petition last year had prayed that the dance bars be shut down since they were illegal and operated in unauthorised structures or premises without occupancy certificates, pollution NOC and were ultra vires of the provisions of the Goa Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, Goa (Regulation of Land Development and Building Construction) Act, 2008 and the Goa (Land Development and Building Construction) Regulations, 2010.

We tried to contact the petitioners Mayekar and Kerkar for comment but they were not reachable. Our reporter who posed as a “big shot fixer” was contacted by some of these dance bars owners who offered even Rs one crore per bar to get them running again. Another bar owner/operator was ready to offer 15 to 20 percent of the profit on a monthly basis if his dance bar could be operational again.

These dance bars (till they were shut down) were offering escort and call girl services and charged Rs 1000 (on non-peak week days) to Rs 5000 per head on weekends as entry fees, which went up to Rs 10,000 per head on festive or long weekends. Commercial sex workers brought in from Northern states as well as from the South were positioned as dancers and the charge was Rs 1000 to Rs 3000 for a 15 minute dance. There were private cubicles in some bars where “private dance” (read naked or semi nude) was performed on payment of Rs 15,000 for 10 minutes. Patrons were later on given additional bills ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 per female dancer as food and beverage charges. The girls forced their patrons to buy them drinks. In reality they drank only water or soft drinks and the patrons were billed exorbitant amounts as food and beverage charges. Those who refused to pay were bashed up by the bouncers hired by the bars.

According to documents accessed by this website three of these bars including the notorious Posh Nosh at Baga – formerly run by history sheeter and goon Sunil Bhomkar, have now obtained Pollution NOCs from the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB).

The same Sunil Bhomkar and Gajendra Singh alias Chhotu (another dance bar operator) were arrested by the Calangute police in the Souza Lobo assault case of December 2022 and spent several months behind bars. The name of the owner/operator of Posh Nosh Baga on the GSPCB NOC is given as K Suresh – who is now the benami operator on behalf of Bhomkar, our source explained.

Some of the operators (after being shut down) including Posh Nosh and others have approached the High Court claiming that since they have obtained the requisite licences like Pollution NOC from the GSPCB they should be allowed to operate again. The matter was listed for February 12 it is learnt.

Those who approached the High Court include Mehfil owner Gajanan Singh alias Chotu, Devils Club Vipin Singh and Dev Yadav, Three Kings owner Narayan Nirlikar, Club Tao owner Sunny Pandey, Posh Nosh owner Sunil Bhomkar, Dilliwala owner Ravikant Yadav and Black Heart owner Deepak Kumar. Most of these joints have constructed illegal and addtional rooms and cabins on their premises which were not sanctioned in the original plans approved by the Panchayat. These venues flout Fire & Saftey norms and most of them do not have an NOC from the Fire department.

Phone calls to Calangute sarpanch Joseph Sequeira and Calangute MLA Micheal Lobo went answered. Other ward members in the Calangute-Baga belt were not available for comment, in spite of our best efforts to contact them.