adminthe backdrop of dwindling sales.
Chances of memorable parties and weddings now also appear remote, as planners will surely have to cut back on booze to reduce costs.
Manje pasina mhamba, ingave life here?
Beer makes the lion in certain people roar. Without it their life will be like that of an archer without his arrows. Itsono isina shinda.
In his 2013 National Budget, Finance Minister Tendai Biti increased excise duty on alcohol by 25 percent with effect from December 1, forcing retailers to push the increase onto the hapless consumer. Most bottle stores upped their prices well before the new tax regime was effected to raise adequate cash to buy their next orders.
At face value, the increases appear nominal, but the cumulative effect is just too ghastly to contemplate. Pints, which previously sold at 75 cents each, are now costing anything between 90 cents and a dollar.
Drinkers now have to fork out US$2 for a quart although the price can be two to three-fold at upmarket joints that have mushroomed across the city.
It can be worse on days when there are international soccer matches as the prices are generally increased to reduce the numbers of non-drinking patrons in bars.
Joints that occasionally hire scantily-dressed waist-wiggling queens are also in the habit of increasing beer prices to pay the entertainers and get handsome returns on the investment.
As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, it is now not unusual to see people sharing jokes and almost everything else except beer. Friends known for not returning favours and those without capacity to even clothe themselves are now being left out of most important occasions.
Even family members who drink a lot without buying are now usually being omitted from guest lists at family get-togethers. And you really wonder whether there are still any such parties across the country.
Mhoro doro, mhoro hwahwa,
Unombonditandadza shamwari,
sang Elijah Madzikatire while extolling the cheer brought by drinking beer.
And not to be outdone, Thomas Mapfumo also sang: “Vakomana doro rinonaka, dai waive mufushwa ndaisa muhomwe.”
Letting people drink their beer helps them relieve tension. It makes them unwind after a hard day’s work and helps them make friends. But now that the prices have shot up through the roof, we can only expect trouble.
Only opaque beer, masese remains affordable.
The prices have remained static, but should everyone drink urwa when it’s not their choice?
In a year in which the people’s favourite team, Dynamos Football Club, landed the league title and clinched the prestigious Mbada Diamonds Cup, guzzlers deserved something better.
This latest round of increases in beer prices is a kick in the face for those wishing to set foot on the celebration train characterised by the inimitable Zora Butter dance routine popularised by sungura maestro Alick Macheso.
Gentle reader, the surge in beer prices will not be without a wave of job losses for waitresses and bartenders.
“We are in trouble my friend. There is no more reason to have 10 workers in this pub when business is now low because people are no longer quaffing as many beers as they did before this latest round of price increases,” a bar owner confided in this writer last weekend.
He said he was even considering closing doors to patrons whenever business was low.
“Hazvibatsire kuswero chemedza radio nemafiriji pasina arikutenga zvinodhaka. Kuenda kumba kunovata kukatenge nani,” the pencil-slim businessman said while repeatedly adjusting his loose fitting pair of trousers.
So hard-hitting have been the increase in the cost of beer because people now no longer have excess cash to buy broke drinking mates the wise waters.
“Kutengera munhu? Haichaita iyoyo. Kana usina mari ingogara warega kuuya kuzokakata mupeta nekuti unotikanganisa kunakirwa,” a self-employed guzzler Phillip Kambarami, popularly known as Buyer, said in Glen View last weekend.
He said from the time prices of beer went up last weekend, people were getting fewer and fewer at pubs.
The effects of the beer price increases have not left out Ladies of loose morals who normally spice up things in bars and give imbibers something to talk about all night long.
No one is running after them.
In this bonus epoch when body-hugging clothes, which clearly defined their body contours, were enough to get men buying them beer, things do not appear the same any more.
There is virtually no one to braai them meat and drown them in expensive cidars as guzzlers are now prioritising food and school fees for their families.
The beer price increases have also affected musicians.
“Mazuva ano mabhendi apinda nzara. Vanhu havana mari yekurara vachikunyungudza zviuno nekuti upenyu hwemudhorobha hwave kuvava.”
A normal person will no longer commit much funds to liberty taking while starring at the prospect of a more harrowing January disease because zvinhu zviri kudhura,” Mr Obadiah Shungu of Glen Norah said last weekend.
He said musical gigs were now getting fewer and fewer also because of massive blackouts that have condemned most suburbs to virtual places of darkness.
Cases of domestic violence are surely going to increase as men are now spending more time at home, raising the chances of clashes with their wives who are used to spending the greater part of the day alone at home.
Churches are the only places that could get an increase in people because kubhawa kwaberekera ingwe.
An immediate reconsideration of the decision to increase beer prices may be necessary to stop guzzlers from switching over to illicit brews.
Most unemployed youths who have been priced out of bottle stores have turned to kachasu and spirits whose high potency affects the normal functions of the body.
“Zed, Lawidzani and kachasu are selling fast. A visit along the banks of Mukuvisi River will show you all classes of people, including uniformed policemen and soldiers, drinking the illicit brews. This beer issue needs to be revisited,” a personal friend Mr Charles Yaso said.
“Those who take these brews sometimes spend up to three days sleeping. The biggest challenge is that they do not eat properly and this causes the beer to take them quick.”
Muggings are likely to rise as people seek whatever means to raise funds for beer.
Inotambika mughetto.
Online Reporter