A liquor store has opened in Saudi Arabia for the first time in over 70 years, a diplomat reported Wednesday, a further socially liberalizing step in the once-ultraconservative kingdom that is home to the holiest sites in Islam, the AP reports. While restricted to non-Muslim diplomats, the store in Riyadh comes as Saudi Arabia's assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aims to make the kingdom a tourism and business destination as part of ambitious plans to slowly wean its economy away from crude oil. However, challenges remain both from the prince's international reputation after the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as well as internally with the conservative Islamic mores that have governed its sandy expanses for decades.
The store sits next to a supermarket in Riyadh's Diplomatic Quarter, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a socially sensitive topic in Saudi Arabia. The diplomat walked through the store Wednesday, describing it as similar to an upscale duty free shop at a major international airport. The store stocks liquor, wine, and only two types of beer for the time being, the diplomat said. Workers at the store asked customers for their diplomatic identifications and for them to place their mobile phones inside of pouches while inside. A mobile phone app allows purchases on an allotment system, the diplomat said. Drinking alcohol is considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam, and Saudi Arabia has banned alcohol since the early 1950s—one of just a few nations with such a ban.
Saudi officials have not publicly commented on the report, but the opening of the store coincides with a story run by the English-language newspaper Arab News, owned by the state-aligned Saudi Research and Media Group, on new rules governing alcohol sales to diplomats in the kingdom. It described the rules as meant "to curb the uncontrolled importing of these special goods and liquors within the diplomatic consignments." The rules took effect Monday, the newspaper reported. For years, diplomats have been able to import liquor through a specialty service into the kingdom, for consumption on diplomatic grounds.
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