Should Wine Be “Withheld” In Fancy Hotels During Ramadan?

Annahar journalist Hiyam Al kossayfi was shocked by the treatment she got in a restaurant (permalink) that was “founded by a Maronite Christian” and “blessed with sacred water by a priest” (my translation, hover for Arabic)

We were getting ready to have dinner the other night in that restaurant of that new hotel. While we ordered our food and drinks, the waiter insisted on recommending a good bottle of wine. He then came back and embarrassingly took back the glasses of wine and said “I’m sorry of what I have to say, but we can’t serve wine because we’re in Ramadan

Of course, the (Christian) writer objected strongly on the grounds that this is Lebanon where your freedom ends when the freedom of others begins. She eventually left without having dinner, caused a scene and mentioned some drivel about the Islamic religious police.

But this is not about the “religious police”. This is all about business. That hotelier doesn’t mind losing a coreligionist customer if that meant the increased business of gulf tourists. It makes business sense for an international hotel where the majority of customers in the Summer are from conservative Arab countries.

But the matter is not so black and white. Would the Arab tourists have objected if they were in a Paris hotel and someone drank wine in Ramadan? Perhaps the writer was up to something after all..