A few days ago, Facebook was bombarded with posts about an incident that resulted in the death of Mahmoud Bayoumi, a customer, in Keif Restaurant/Cafe on El Nozha Street, Heliopolis. This has stirred a multiple of reactions from the Egyptian people and the authorities. Luckily, those who committed the viscous murder were quickly caught. However, people remain enraged at the tragic loss of Mahmoud Bayoumi that a lot of extreme measures have been taken.

Among those extreme measures were people expressing their disdain towards the “minimum charge” policy that many restaurants and cafes adopt. It’s also important to note that the authorities have been taking other extreme measures among which was shutting down several, if not most, of the cafes and restaurants in different areas around Cairo including downtown, Masr El-Gedida and El-Haram. Atef Abdel Hamid, the Governor of Cairo, has asserted that we are in desperate need of closing all unlicensed coffee shops in the whole of the city.

Khalid Mustafa, Cairo Governorate Media Spokesman, has assured that most of the downtown cafes are not licensed since former Cairo Governor, Dr. Abdul Rahim Shehata, has stopped issuing licenses around 10 years ago.

Shutting down the cafes and restaurants has left Egyptians with a lot of mixed emotions, since a lot of households are dependent on their continuity in order to make a living.