amazing

Bar Builds Maze to Thwart Law Saying It Has to Be 500 Meters From Highway

India’s supreme court recently banned alcohol sales within 500 meters of a major highway. Intended, in theory, to reduce drunk driving, it’s been a real drag for poorly located bar-and-restaurant owners, who essentially get to decide if they’d rather uproot their businesses, or stop serving booze entirely and be out that revenue. Enter the genius who owns this roadside bar in the coastal city of Ernakulam — according to local media, a few days before the law went into effect, a crew erected a 250-meter-long maze out of prefabricated concrete that tripled the distance you have to travel to get from the street to the bar’s door.

“We have constructed an extended way to reach the bar,” the manager of the bar, called Aiswarya, informed the Times of India. “Now it is 520 meters from the highway.” The story says the government has little recourse, since, by definition, Aiswarya is now more than 500 meters from the highway. “We do no measure the aerial distance but only the walking distance,” an official conceded, although he did add that the owner “will be fined for altering the entrance.” Apparently, lots of restaurateurs are now attempting to set up “a temporary maze-like structure” of their own to subvert the government’s order.

Bar Thwarts Zoning Law With Elaborate Concrete Maze