Editorial Note: This article is based on a publicly filed community complaint by Mahendra Bhanushali (@mahendrabhanushali) on March 13, 2026, on-ground video footage credited to the same source, and publicly available information about the Maharashtra Prohibition Act, 1949 and the Mumbai Police complaint process. The Gold Wine Shop and Singhad College are named as location references consistent with the public complaint on record. No individuals consuming alcohol are identified by name. Newspatron does not endorse targeting of any individual, business, or community. All calls for civic action reflect editorial opinion and community advocacy.
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A few weeks ago, we published a video that made people stop scrolling.
A man walked into a paan shop in Borivali at 3 PM on a weekday. Not at night. Not in some hidden alley. A Tuesday afternoon. And inside that shop — open for business, sunlight streaming in — he found bottles, glasses, gutkha, banned cigarettes, and ganja. All of it. In one paan shop. In plain sight.
That video has been watched, shared, and forwarded more times than we can count. And the number of comments that said “this happens near my building too” — we stopped counting those as well.
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If you missed that one, read it first. It sets the context for everything that follows.
Back? Good.
Because what you are about to read is not Borivali. It is Ghatkopar East. Different suburb. Different video. Same pattern — and in some ways, a more brazen one. Because at least the paan shop had walls.
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This one is happening on the footpath.
Outside a licensed wine shop. Opposite a college. Next to a bus stop. In full view of women waiting for buses, senior citizens making their evening rounds, and children walking home from school.
Every single evening.
Video credit: Sanjay Upadhyay
The Complaint That Needed to Be Filed
His name is Mahendra Bhanushali. He is a local community representative in the Chandivali Assembly Constituency. And on March 13, 2026, he did something most people in his position either avoid doing or keep doing quietly until they give up.
He filmed it. He posted it. He named the location. And he tagged the police — all three stations with jurisdiction over the area — by name.
Ghatkopar Police Station. Sakinaka Police Station. Powai Police Station.
The specific address he flagged: Gold Wine Shop, opposite Singhad College, Ward No. 158, Ghatkopar East. A busy stretch of road. A bus stop right there. And every evening, a rotating group of men with bottles, standing on the footpath, completely unbothered by the fact that this is, in several ways, illegal.
His words were measured. He was not ranting. He was not attacking the wine shop owner — he was clear that licensed sellers are doing their legal business and that is not the issue. The issue is what happens outside the shop after the transaction is complete.
“The atmosphere in the area is deteriorating,” he said. “It is having a negative impact on young children.”
That is a community leader being diplomatic. What he probably wanted to say — and what his neighbours have been saying — is considerably less measured.
On-ground footage. Video credit: @mahendrabhanushali
Wait, Is This Not Already Illegal?
Yes. Fully, clearly, unambiguously illegal.
The Maharashtra Prohibition Act, 1949 — still in force, still applicable, updated as recently as 2005 — has a specific section for exactly this situation.
Section 85. It covers anyone who, in a public place or any place accessible to the public, is drunk and behaving in a disorderly manner, or is drunk and incapable of controlling themselves.
The penalties are not a slap on the wrist.
First offence: Rigorous imprisonment up to six months, plus a fine up to ₹10,000. Minimum sentence without special reasons from the court: three months imprisonment and a ₹5,000 fine.
Repeat offence: Up to one year imprisonment, ₹10,000 fine. Minimum six months and ₹7,500.
There is also IPC Section 290 — public nuisance — which sits alongside the Prohibition Act and gives police an additional handle to act.
The footpath outside Gold Wine Shop is a public place. The bus stop beside it is a public place. The road women walk on every evening is a public place. Section 85 applies here the same way it applies anywhere else in Mumbai.
So the law exists. The penalties exist. The authority to act exists.
And yet — here we are.
The Real Problem: The Law Exists. The Enforcement Does Not.
This is the part nobody wants to say out loud, but everyone already knows.
The law is not broken. The enforcement is.
Mumbai Police are not uniquely negligent. They are overstretched, understaffed for beats, and — let us be honest — operating with a very clear internal hierarchy of what gets actioned first. A domestic violence call. A theft in progress. An accident. These come before a group of men drinking on a footpath.
That is understandable in isolation. The problem is that in aggregate, the footpath drinking never gets to the top of the queue. It becomes the permanent background noise of suburban life — everyone knows it is there, nobody does anything, and after a point the residents stop reporting it because nothing happens when they do.
Suburban complaints about public drinking spiked across Ghatkopar, Sakinaka, Powai, and Andheri in the first quarter of 2026. The common thread: evening hours, specific wine shop clusters, and a consistent gap between the complaint being filed and any visible patrol response.
The pattern is not a mystery. It just has not been treated as a priority.
That changes when enough people file enough complaints through enough channels that ignoring it becomes more work than addressing it. Which is exactly why the next section matters.
Who Is Actually Paying the Price
Not the men with the bottles. They are fine. They go home when they feel like it.
The people paying the price are the ones who do not have a choice about being there.
The woman who takes that bus every evening at 7:30 PM and has started standing at the far end of the shelter because the closer end is too close to the group. The senior citizen who used to take his evening walk past Singhad College and has quietly rerouted. The college student who walks with her phone in her hand, already dialing, not because something has happened but because something feels like it could.
The children are the part that stays with you. Children process what they see. A child walking home from tuition past a group of drunk men on a footpath is not having a neutral experience. They are filing it away. Learning what a public space looks like, what it feels like, who it belongs to.
And the answer they are getting right now, every evening, in Ward 158, is: not you.
That is the real cost of enforcement inaction. Not a statistic. A child learning that the footpath near the bus stop is not safe after 7 PM.
What You Can Actually Do Right Now
If you live in Ghatkopar East, Chandivali, Sakinaka, or Powai — or anywhere in Mumbai with the same problem — here is the full practical picture. No bureaucratic maze. Just the direct path.
Option 1: Online complaint — fastest to file
Mumbai Police online complaint portal: mumbaipolice.gov.in/OnlineComplaints
Fill the form, describe the location, attach a photo or video, submit. You get a reference number via SMS. That number is your paper trail.
Option 2: Dial 112 — for when it is happening right now
Maharashtra’s emergency response line. If the drinking is creating an active disturbance — shouting, harassment, a confrontation — call 112. State the location clearly. Ask for the complaint reference number before you hang up.
Option 3: In-person at Pant Nagar Police Station — for maximum impact
Pant Nagar PS is the station with actual jurisdiction over Ward 158.
Contact: Senior PI Suhas Kamble | 022-25113255
Walk in, go to the Duty Officer, bring your written complaint, get a diary number. Do not leave without it. Bring 2–3 neighbours if possible. A group complaint carries more weight.
Option 4: BMC parallel complaint
The footpath encroachment and littering aspect falls under BMC. File via Mumbai 311 app or portal.mcgm.gov.in. Category: Public Nuisance or Encroachment on Footpath.
BMC N-Ward Office: Jawahar Road, opposite Ghatkopar Railway Station | 022-25010161
You will receive a Service Request number. Follow up after seven days.
One rule applies to all of these: Document everything before you file. One video on your phone, date and time visible if possible, location clear in frame. That single piece of evidence converts a vague complaint into a specific, actionable one.
If the Complaint Goes Nowhere — Go Up the Chain
ⓘ The names, designations, contact numbers, and jurisdictional details below are sourced from publicly available records, official government directories, electoral commission data, and publicly accessible social media profiles as of March 2026. Newspatron has made every effort to ensure accuracy. If any detail has changed, please verify with the relevant office before reaching out.
This is where most residents stop. They file the complaint, wait a week, nothing happens, and they give up. Do not give up. Go up the chain.
Your first call is to Sanjay Bhalerao, the Corporator for Ward 158. The corporator is your most local elected voice — the one whose number you should already have saved, and if you do not, today is a good day to fix that. The BMC N-Ward Office sits opposite Ghatkopar Railway Station on Jawahar Road, ward control on 022-25010161. A corporator complaint on record, in writing, is not easy to ignore.
If that produces no movement, your MLA is Parag Shah, who represents Ghatkopar East in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. He won his 2024 election by nearly 35,000 votes from this very constituency. A public drinking nuisance affecting women, children, and senior citizens at a busy bus stop falls squarely within the kind of civic issue an MLA’s office is expected to act on — or at least publicly acknowledge.
Your MP is Sanjay Dina Patil, representing Mumbai North East in Parliament.
For police-specific escalation, the chain above Pant Nagar PS goes to ACP Ghatkopar Division, then to DCP Zone VII, Purshottam Karad, and above that to Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar.
At the state level, Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis — who also serves as Chief Minister — holds final accountability for law enforcement priorities across Maharashtra. His office is reachable via the CM’s official portal. If you are filing a public complaint that references the Maharashtra Prohibition Act Section 85 and documented non-enforcement, you have a factual basis for escalation all the way to that level.
The Guardian Minister for Mumbai Suburban is Mangal Prabhat Lodha, whose office sits between the local civic machinery and the state government. A tagged social media post to his handle, with your complaint reference number, puts the issue on record at the state interface level.
None of this requires legal expertise. It requires documentation, persistence, and the understanding that every step up the chain makes inaction slightly more expensive for the person sitting at the bottom of it.
The Close
The footpath outside Gold Wine Shop in Ward 158 belongs to everyone who lives there, commutes through there, waits at that bus stop, walks a child home from school.
It does not belong to whoever decides to set up an informal bar on it every evening.
Mahendra Bhanushali filed his complaint publicly because he understood something important: a complaint made on record, with a name attached and a location named, is far harder to quietly ignore than one filed anonymously and forgotten. He tagged three police stations. He put the video out. He made it someone’s job to respond.
That is the template.
One filed complaint is a start. Ten filed complaints from the same area, the same stretch, the same week — that is a pattern that a station cannot file away.
The law is already on your side. Section 85 exists. The Maharashtra Prohibition Act is not a suggestion. What is needed now is consistent, documented, named pressure from the people who live with this every day.
File the complaint. Keep the reference number. Follow up in seven days. Tag the police on social media with the reference number if there is no response.
The footpath is yours. Start acting like it.
Have you faced something similar in your area? Has a Mumbai Police complaint ever resulted in real-time action? Tell us in the comments — your experience helps other residents know what to expect and what to demand.
A Note on This Report: This blog is based on a publicly filed community complaint by Mahendra Bhanushali (@mahendrabhanushali) shared on X on March 13, 2026, on-ground video footage credited to the same source, and publicly available information about the Maharashtra Prohibition Act, 1949 and the Mumbai Police complaint process. The Gold Wine Shop and Singhad College are named as location references consistent with the public complaint. No individuals consuming alcohol are identified by name. Newspatron does not endorse targeting of any individual, business, or community. All calls for civic action reflect editorial opinion and community advocacy.
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