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By Zelda Venter 
1 hour ago
Pretoria – An overzealous police officer who confiscated all alcohol stocks at the popular Padstal pub and restaurant in eastern Pretoria has to return the alcohol immediately.
Until now, the stocks have been stored at the Silverton Police Station.
The order was issued by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, and followed an urgent request from the owners of Padstal in Equestria.
The police pounced on the popular place on July 15 during level 3 of the confinement when the sale of liquor was still prohibited.
That day, police arrested a Padstal employee for selling or distributing two bottles of brandy to a customer.
The two bottles were seized by the police and charges were brought against the employee, a Mr. Phillips, for violating the closure regulations. These charges are still pending in court.
The police, however, did not leave him there that day and, without a search warrant, he entered the restaurant where they searched a back warehouse for more alcohol.
Then they confiscated the entire stock.
The store’s owners said their shares were never part of any violation of closing regulations, as they were simply in their warehouse and not being sold.
They said that the public did not have access to this stock.
They also said that the stock of alcohol was not under Phillips’ control and that in the absence of the owners on the premises at the time, the police had no right to drink it.
The two bottles of brandy allegedly sold were also not part of the warehouse’s seized property.
The owners said that, apart from this, the police had refused to provide the owners with a detailed list of the amount of alcohol they had consumed and refused to give reasons for seizing it.
The court was informed that, despite requests from lawyers about where the seized property was and how many bottles were taken, the police remained silent on the matter.
The police, in turn, said that in light of the two bottles of brandy that were sold, they had the right to confiscate the entire stock.
This, they said, was because they believed that all other alcohol was part of “the commission of a crime.”
The court held that the alcohol stored in the warehouse had nothing to do with the two bottles of brandy that were allegedly sold illegally and the police had no right to carry out an inventory.
The police were ordered to return the stocks within 48 hours.
Pretoria News
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