Bar chain "Shotluckan" proclaims themselves their own country to avoid 10 pm ban on alcohol sales

A Swedish bar-chain named, roughly translated, "The Shot spot" and with the motto "Life's too short to sip drinks" has proclaimed themselves their own country in order to defy government orders regarding no alcohol served after 10 pm in Sweden. It's Shotluckan who has decided on this tactic, and the owners say that "the purpose of the bar works best at night." The purpose is to drink shots and be merry. And crowd into a steamy loud bar while snow falls outside.

The Swedish government has said there should be an end to alcohol sales after 10 pm in the evening, beginning this Friday. This will hamper the high season of traditional "julbord"  - which are Christmas dinners at restaurants, shared with offices, organisations you may be part of, family and groups of friends - as well as the traditional New Years dinner, as legally a resturant can not stay open after they have stopped serving alcohol.

That is what made this bar rethink and proclaim that they are their own country with a different time zone, so as to be able to serve alcohol until 03:30 as usual. 

- We are trying to see something fun in this very gloomy situation we are in, says Kim Strömberg, one of the founders of the bar chain.

In Swedish time, they will close at 10 pm, but inside the bar the clock will show 03:00 in the afternoon, allowing for many more shots to be had before closing time. 

The chain has bars in Halmstad, Uppsala, Lund, Linköping and Malmö will now run the same concept in all cities.

Kim Strömberg testifies that the pandemic hit the company hard and that they had to lay off staff, so this is a way to keep the mood up.

If the message is that Sweden should have cancelled and shut down everything, well, then you should shut it down completely, says Kim Strömberg.

"In the end we are doing this not just for our customers, and us, but our staff, we've had to let many go and we need to keep open or the entire chain will bankrupt."