Liquor license sur-prizes

After going through all that trouble to get my liquor license -- from the salary certificate from my employer to driving in circles around the desert trying to find the bloody Khalifa City A Police Station -- I had the idea that it would at least be taken seriously by the liquor store people. And it is, at least its existence is. But all that nonsense about the monthly limit (some percentage of my salary, which seems to be arbitrarily calculated) is another story. Let me give you a little example:

There we are, at some liquor outlet (name deleted at suggestion of my husband the lawyer) in Khalidiyah (hey - I can write that in Arabic!) stocking up on a bit of wine and hard stuff. Ok, so we bought about four cases of wine. Or so. We went over to the checkout, I proudly handed over my liquor license, and...

I was over the monthly limit.

I don't know how much over I was -- probably about eight million dirhams or so, judging by the number of bottles we had in the cart -- I was too busy working out my apologetic idiot explanation to the clerk's expected "Sorry madame, you cannot buy this much hooch in one month. Now the liquor police are going to take you out to the desert late at night and beat you to a pulp for making such a stupid mistake."

But that's not what happened.

What the clerk actually said was this:

"Oh, madame! You have spent over X dirhams this month! To honour you and thank you for your patronage we are now going to give you a special prize! Would you like a free bottle of whisky or would you prefer a free case of beer?"

The whisky was shite, so we took the beer.

Getting a liquor license

It is amazing to me how under-utilised Google is, particularly by those people who seem to need it most.

Have a look around the expat forums and you'll find countless threads starting with something like:    "How do I get a liquor license in Abu Dhabi?"  Do any of these folks realise that they could type that very sentence into a Google search box and the top hit will be this:

http://www.admmi.com/Beverages/get_license.aspx

??

In fact, it actually takes less time to run a Google search than it does to log in to Forum X, start a new thread, and write up a question (well, sometimes these forum posts are in the form of a question, sometimes they seem to be written by people who were absent on the day the concept of a complete sentence was discussed in grammar school).  Not to mention the time cost of inserting all those annoying little emoticons.

Ceteris paribus with respect to time, however, the real problem with going to a forum to ask advice on practical matters is that you get exactly what you pay for:  responses like "I think maybe the license fee is X."

Why would anyone value this over the straight-from-the-horse's-mouth information they can get from the site above?

I confess I don't know the answer to this question, except for my stock response of "half of the population is below average."  But I'm on a campaign to make the process of getting good information even easier than it is now (I expect in a day or so this blog post will be high up on the Google results).

Here's what to do:

Requirement to obtain a liquor license as applies to normal non-Muslim residents in employment within Abu Dhabi:

Fill in Liquor License application form (to be typed) in Arabic.

Provide original passport plus a copy. Also present residential papers. 

Present Labour contract copy with the original.

Attach 2 recent passport sized photos with application form.

If there is doubt of religion (possible due to nationality or name), present religion certificate from either the appropriate embassy or other authority.

Minimum salary requirement must be above 3000-4000 DHS monthly depending on circumstance. Salary Certificate from the applicant’s company must be presented, in Arabic.

Salary Certificate from the company, in Arabic, addressed to the Directorate Gen. Of Police Abu Dhabi - Criminal Investigation Department.

Those who fall into the Drivers category of employment are not allowed to obtain a liquor license.

For renewals old liquor license must be presented.

Also please note that the value of the permit is based on the holder’s salary; up to 20% of the holders salary may be used for alcohol. 

Payment: the charge will be 20% of the license value (for example, should a license value be DHS400, then the charge would be DHS 80.

The completed documents should be taken by the applicant to the Police Directorate (click here to see map).

The Licensing Department is open from 8am-11am on Sundays and Mondays ONLY.

PROs applying on behalf of the employee can go to the Licensing Department on Wednesdays from 8am-11am.

Licences issued will be delivered to you by Empost within a week after submission. DHS 10 will be charged by Empost for delivery.

Now for those of you below the mean (and you know who you are), here's a special gift from me to you, just in case you didn't manage to notice the link to the liquor license application at the bottom of the linked page:

Liquor License Application Form

Ok, that's done.  Of course it's still going to be necessary to actually do a search for this information in order to end up here.  So I offer the following useful link:

www.google.com

Use it.

Document Attestation - Part One

This morning, boys and girls, we are going to learn about the process of attesting documents.  Well, at least I'm going to provide a few links and references.  You can learn it on your own.  Or do what we did and ask an enormous favour of a stateside pal who saw to it that my diploma was couriered around Washington getting all the right little stamps and signatures.

Here are few things to know:

1.  Attestation is not the same as apostille.  Be aware of this when you contact your university registrar and they tell you to "just send in a request for a duplicate diploma and write APOSTILLE on the request."  That'll be great if you want to head over to pretty much any country in the world.  Except the UAE.  See, "apostille" refers to a certificate that only applies to countries which are party to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents.  And the UAE isn't party to that convention, so foreign documents like diplomas, marriage licenses, and birth certificates still need to be "legalised."  That is, attested according to the rules of the UAE.   See the US Department of State page for more detailed information:

http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction/hague_issues/hague_issues_562.html

2.  As tempting as it is to go to every forum relating to working in the UAE and start a thread titled "HELP with attesting documents," I advise against this.  Go straight to the horse's mouth - your home country's (i.e., the country in which the original document was issued) embassy site.  Here are a few links:

United States

http://abudhabi.usembassy.gov/document_authentication.html

United Kingdom

http://ukinuae.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-brit...galise-document

Australia

http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/authen.html

Canada

http://international.gc.ca/about-a_propos/..._documents.aspx

Zayed University in Abu Dhabi has an excellent description of the process on its website:

http://www.zu.ac.ae/employment/html/beforearrive.html#attestingdocuments

3.  The process of attestation can be done once you're in the UAE, but it's going to be a lot easier (and cheaper) to do before you actually move.  Get started on it soon.  As in yesterday.

4.  For most people, the documents that will need to be attested are

• The diploma of the highest degree awarded.  That's diploma, not transcript.  In other words, that fancy calligraphied certificate that you put in a frame and hang in your office.

• Your marriage certificate (if you're married).  I still haven't figured out why this is relevant for a work visa, but there are a lot of things I still haven't figured out about the UAE.

• Birth certificates for your children.

I hope this is a helpful start.  For many of you (like my husband), the process will be taken care of by your employers.  For others (like me), you'll need to take care of attestation (and pay for it) yourselves.  With a little background reading and careful planning, it will all work out.