bengaluru erection of barricades and drawing up of boxes or circles aimed at maintaining social distancing were seen in front of liquor shops in different parts of karnataka on sunday a day ahead of their reopening after a gap of over 40days due to the lockdownkarnataka excise commissioner on saturday had ordered that only cl2 retail shops and cl11c staterun retail shops like mysuru sales international limited would open from may 4it had permitted liquor sale liquor between 9 am and 7 pm only in areas that are outside covid19 containment zonesreports of barricades being erected to ensure that people stand in line and drawing of boxes or circles in front of shops to maintain social distancing in front of retail and msil shops have emerged from across the state including the state capitalalso reports about shop keepers doing special poojas outside liquor shops in kolar and some even illuminating their outlets with lights from outside have surfaced from other parts of the statemeanwhile officials were engaged in checking stocks ahead of the shops opening on monday morningwe are making all preparations to ensure that government rules are followed we also seek the cooperation of the people and police the manager of a shop saidanother said there may be a rush initially after which things may get back to normalwe expect things to go on smoothly he addedcalling for number of customers to be limited to five at a time while ensuring that they maintain social distancing of not less than six feet distance the order states that customers and the staff will have to wear masks and sanitizers should be used at the shopsonly stand alone cl2 and cl11c shops are allowed to commence liquor sale and not those at malls and super markets it saidofficials in bengaluru said liquor sale is prohibited in 26 containment zones in the city while in other places rules that have been prescribed need to be followedin case of any violation strict action would be taken including imposing of penalty they saidthere was pressure on the government to kick start economic activities including allowing sale of liquor to boost the states finances as excise is the key area which generates revenuestate excise minister h nagesh had recently pegged the losses at rs 60 crore per day because of closure of liquor shops due to the lockdown