Venezuela: Chavez is seriously after beer

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has ordered the military to crack down on businesses selling beer on the streets or after legal hours, The Associated Press reported this week.

"Armed forces: Any truck that goes around selling beer in the barrios, they must be caught," Chavez said in a televised speech. "And not only trucks. There are liquor stores open at any hour where people can go and buy liquor. What is that?"

President Chavez is considering raising taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. Venezuelans' taste for beer and Scotch whisky is an irritation to the leftist president, and he raised liquor and cigarette taxes three years ago while calling for similar measures — to little effect.

As we have already reported, Chavez is attacking the country's largest food producer, Empresas Polar, which sells the country's leading brand of beer, Polar.

Chavez has ordered the expropriation of some of Polar's warehouses, and has warned he could decide to take over more of the company. If the government did take over the Polar brewery, it would be shut down, he has warned.

18 June, 2010