No Booze Or Cigarettes Are Allowed To Be Sold During Lockdown

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I have just returned from the shops yet again as we needed snacks lol. Having got all the requirements for the 3 weeks besides the milk and bread which gives you/me an excuse to pop out I was asked to get some snacks. The normal chocolates and crisps or chips depending where you live.

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The one thing I noticed is a mad rush on the bottle stores as they are not deemed essential. One of the regulations imposed during the lock down is that no alcohol or cigarettes are allowed to be sold. Alcohol I can understand to a degree, but cigarettes is a mind boggler. Alcohol is not allowed to be transported so no online businesses either. One gentleman in front of me bought 14 cartons for 21 days so if the Corona Virus doesn't get him something else will. I just hope they are a big household and not just him and his wife.

The idea behind it is to limit the number of times people go to the shops as it is for essentials only an cigarettes and alcohol is not one of them. No dog walking, no jogging and the only groups allowed are at funerals with a cap on 50 people.

I can see many who don't know finding out tomorrow and this should be interesting as many go cold turkey for a few weeks. Talk about an incentive to give up as I remember it takes about 3 weeks before the craving starts disappearing. I still fancy one with my coffee everyday as I don't think the craving will ever disappear.

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I have no idea what the thinking I behind any of this and possibly they are using an old outdated emergency plan. It is fine for the majority living in the suburbs, but life in the townships is so different. Over the years you have affluent areas or suburbs as it is frowned upon by the blacks if you leave the township. The blacks that live outside are as prone to attack and robbery like everyone else.

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I spent about 12 months patrolling the townships during the Apartheid era making sure the masses were kept quiet. They don't have bottle stores like we know them and have things like Shebeens where you can buy booze any time of the day as long as you have cash. These places don't have a liquor licence and are illegal operations. An off the grid bottle store if you like that will have spirits,beers and wines plus cigarettes from today.

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Nuts is all I can say.

I suppose if you told the people living in the townships you can't buy something they will know exactly where to get their hands on it at a premium price though. Where they live is another world which will be foreign to most of us. Electricity and running water we take as a given necessity and this is something that not every house has.

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When you drive through certain areas you can see the illegal hook ups to the electricity supply and quite often people are killed adding more to an already dangerous system. It is amazing that anyone gets any electricity as all the connections tap from each other.

Lets hope this pans out ok as they are definitely giving it a good shot. Normality hopefully in 3 weeks.