Do pegs shrink after two rounds? Vigilance raid finds 48/24 ml jigger in Kannur bar

Kannur: For years, bar regulars have cracked the same old joke after a few rounds: “The peg is getting shorter.” Usually, it is laughed off as drunken banter. However, a statewide Vigilance inspection under Operation Barcode suggests the suspicion may not be entirely unfounded.

At Pratheeksha Bar in Pazhayangadi near Payyannur, officers of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) found not one, but two kinds of measuring cups behind the counter.

The standard jigger -- the hourglass-shaped bar tool -- measures 60 ml on one side (a peg) and 30 ml (small) on the other.
“Apart from the standard measuring cup, we found a second cup that measured 48 ml and 24 ml,” said Vigilance DySP Babu Peringeth. “This smaller jigger was used after customers had downed two or three pegs,” he alleged.

The VACB team immediately called in officials from the Legal Metrology Department, who fined the bar ₹25,000 on the spot, Peringeth said.

Bar cries foul
Pratheeksha Bar, however, insists Vigilance officers framed it to meet their “monthly targets”.

“That measuring cup was taken from a dusty drawer. There were cobwebs inside it,” said General Manager Jeffrey Aloysius Morrison. “No one was using it. To say we cheat customers is an insult to their intelligence.”

Morrison said CCTV footage would show the officials pulling the jigger from an unused drawer that also contained rat droppings.

Asked how a non-standard 48/24 ml jigger -- a product rarely found in the market -- ended up in the bar’s drawer, Morrison said he had no explanation.
“Even I am seeing it for the first time,” he said.

He recalled that an employee had been dismissed four months ago for receiving unaccounted money via UPI. “But even then, there was no allegation that he used a smaller measuring cup,” he said.

Morrison said the bar had no reason to short-change customers, considering it is facing stiff competition from a BEVCO outlet just 200 metres away.
“We attract customers with free snacks and complimentary food. We are famous for free ‘touchings’ and ghee rice and chicken roast,” he said.

Asked why the bar paid the ₹25,000 fine if it had proof of innocence, Morrison said: “The officials held us liable as the measuring cup was found on our premises. I argued that if someone plants ganja in the bar tomorrow, will we be held responsible?” “That argument fell on deaf ears,” he said.

Morrison also claimed that the regular jigger used at the bar measured 62 ml because years of use had worn it thin.“But the officer had nothing to say about that,” Morrison said.

Vigilance not amused
DySP Peringeth dismissed the bar’s claims, saying the raid was not a fishing expedition.

“Based on specific information, we visited the bar on a Saturday. We found the bar serving lesser quantities after two or three rounds. We documented it,” he said.

“So when we raided the bar, we searched specifically for the smaller jigger and found it in a drawer. I believe they hid it there on seeing us,” he said. And far from being dusty, it was clean and shining, he said.

“And why would a bar keep such an odd measuring cup? Who orders a 24 ml peg or says, ‘let’s have one last round of 48 ml’,” he asked.

QR codes to track liquor bottles
As part of Operation Barcode, VACB teams inspected four bars in Iritty, Taliparamba, Pazhayangadi and Payyannur, Peringeth said. Inspectors Sajeev, Sunilkumar and Vinod Chandran led the teams at these locations.

None of the bars had unaccounted-for bottles, he said.

However, in Iritty, Taliparamba and Payyannur, officers scanning QR codes on liquor bottles found some anomalies.

All liquor in bars is supplied through the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (BEVCO), and a new QR code-based tracking system has been introduced to track the brand, quantity and destination.

“When we scanned QR codes on some Bacardi bottles, the data showed they were beer bottles supplied to bars in the Kollam district,” said Peringeth.
“But we don’t think this is the bars’ fault. It appears to be teething trouble with a new system.”