Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia says he is concerned about crime around liquor outlets like shebeens, taverns, pub, nightclubs and bottle stores.
Image: GCIS
Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has expressed concern about crime around liquor establishments, calling for a national conversation about the place of alcohol in society.
Cachalia was speaking during the release of the quarterly crime statistics between April 2026 and June 2026 on Friday, when it was reported that 56 murders were reported at liquor outlets in the Eastern Cape, 40 in Gauteng, and 213 in KwaZulu-Natal.
Just two days after the crime statistics were released, one person was shot dead in a tavern in KwaMashu on Sunday. According to reports from private security company KZN VIP Unit, the community reported that two men had been drinking at a local tavern when an unknown man approached and shot them.
“Multiple shots were fired towards them. One of the men sustained critical gunshot wounds. KZN VIP Medical and Rescue personnel immediately initiated emergency medical treatment and attempted to resuscitate the victim. Despite their efforts, the man unfortunately succumbed to his injuries and was declared deceased at the scene," the security company said.
The crime statistics from April to June 2026 indicate that 5,427 murders took place in the country in that time. Of these, 1,047 were reported in the Eastern Cape, 1,276 in Gauteng, and 1,179 in KwaZulu-Natal.
In one incident at a liquor outlet, three people stormed into a tavern in the Kanana SAPS precinct in Johannesburg and opened fire randomly, killing five people and injuring one person on May 3. The three suspects were later arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder.
In another incident, nine people were shot dead, and two were wounded when gunmen opened fire inside a tavern at a shebeen in Marikana, Philippi East in January.
Cachalia said the senior leadership of the SAPS interrogates the crime picture every Monday, looking at shifts and changes to decide whether their use of resources is having an impact.
Cachalia said a substantial proportion of murders and serious assaults involve people who were drinking, who then killed or injured people they knew, often over trivial arguments.
“That process has made one thing unmistakably clear: Alcohol is a primary driver of violence in this country. The pattern is consistent and depressingly predictable. Violence concentrates over weekends, at night, and in and around liquor outlets, many of them unlicensed and operating without any regard for regulation,” he said.
Cachalia said a meaningful portion of the murder rate is not the work of organised criminals or armed robbers; it is ordinary people, drunk, with access to a weapon.
“We cannot arrest our way out of that. It requires enforcement of liquor licensing, by-law enforcement by municipalities, and an honest national conversation about the place of alcohol in our society,” Cachalia said.
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