But as always seems to be the case, the Middle East still trumps us in religious whacknuttery, as my friend Elizabeth, who is working as a helicopter pilot in the UAE, describes:
Something to consider the next time you pop into your local grocery store for your alcohol of choice…
Drinking alcohol in the UAE is a regular practice among expats. One may call it a social indulgence; another may call it a survival tool. The government calls it an activity that must be tracked and taxed. Essentially, it’s an easy way to squeeze money from infidels in a land that does not collect income tax. For the first 2 years we lived here we skated the system by having a friend do booze runs for us. We would get a case of beer here and there, and when we wanted an over-priced glass of wine we would just go to a licensed restaurant (which is a whole different topic). Then we started hearing horror stories of sting operations where expats were being picked off from bars and carted off to jail for not being licensed. Here’s the thing; if you visit this country with a 30-day tourist visa you are exempt from obtaining a license. You are free to imbibe in hotel-restaurants, but you may not buy from the 2-3 liquor stores that supply residents with take-home alcohol. If you have a resident visa, you must be legally licensed (procedure to follow) or else you subject yourself to possible jail time and a hefty fine. As a quick example of how f*cked the system is, there was a story in the paper recently of a British woman who charged an Emirati of sexual assault (she got wasted at a bar and found herself in his bed the following morning). The authorities then turned around and charged HER for drinking without a license. So there you go. Having a license is a big deal.
Every year the license must be renewed. We got our first license from the Abu Dhabi police department last year (relatively simple process), but the procedure has since changed. The first step in the process is to obtain a salary certificate from your employer, because the amount of alcohol you can buy is dependent on your monthly income. Our company fully understands that most of their employees drink (we are in the aviation business, after all) and has prepared directions to the new facility for licensing in Abu Dhabi. Brief tangent…
There are no street addresses in this country. Most streets have 2-3 names, and locals generally know the street names (Kaleej Al Arabi, Al Salam, etc) while expats know the numbers (2 street, 4 street, etc). This becomes a problem when I, an expat, ask a local for directions. If it is a business I am looking for (that I have never been to) I will usually call ahead of time and just ask them to email me a map. Likewise, business cards usually have graphic maps in lieu of addresses. So, back to our HR department preparing directions. Here’s an excerpt;
“On 15th street turn right at a shop called technical scissors. Then take 1st left. Travel up this street and you will see a cafe called Donner café on your left and Abu Dhabi Media Company on your right. Try and park anywhere here. To find the building, walk past Donner café keeping the café on your left side and go to the end of the block. Turn left into a square, and the licensing building is the last building on the right in this square. The office is situated in a building that is NOT signposted”. I kid you not; the office that processes liquor licenses for several hundred THOUSAND expats does not have a sign identifying it as such. So, armed with both the descriptive directions and the GPS coordinates (that a forward-thinking pilot obtained) we set off to find this elusive office. We brought with us the salary certificate from HR, our original passport/visa with a copy, and some passport photos. The stars and planets aligned as we found the general vicinity of the office on our first try. The actual office location was obtained after walking around and asking some Emirates in uniforms where to go.
After beating all odds and actually finding the office, you then must pick up an application. This application cannot be filled in on site with a pen (too easy/logical); it must be typed in both English and Arabic with the information from your letter, passport and visa. Of course, there is nobody in the office to perform this service (again, too easy/logical), so you must take the application to a “typing center” that is offsite. Fortunately, we found such a center 3 buildings away in a small office space that provides passport photos and photocopies. We hand over all of our documentation and 30 dirhams ($8) and 7 minutes later we have our typed applications. Then, it’s back to the licensing office. We hand over documentation, photos, typed applications, and 400 dirhams ($109). The man behind the desk scribbles out a receipt and tells us to come back tomorrow to pick up the license. We explain that we will be busy at work and he says that I can come back tomorrow and pick both of them up. Again, we explain that I am, in fact, gainfully employed and am unavailable to return for several days. “Hallas”, he answers, “No problem to return next week”. So next week we will return with the receipt and pick up a piece of paper that gives us another year of peace of mind as we indulge in over-priced booze. Cheap insurance in our minds. Ironically, going through this process will drive one to drink…
Sounds remarkably similar to the process of reporting to the Contracting Officer the number of hours of accident exposure (and accidents, too, of course) that we have had while performing work on contract task orders that they have issued. There is a multi-column by multi-row spreadsheet for the Accident Exposure Report, because there are different types of conditions and labor categories. We are chastised (by email) if our report is not submitted timely. So, I strive hard to submit promptly a spreadsheet filled with all zeros, since the same Contracting Officer requiring the report has not yet issued any task orders for us to perform. Reminiscent of the old government requirement to initial any erasures on an official document. That led to the admonition, when someone initialed in the wrong spot: "Erase your initials and initial your erasure."
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