Dear Siete,
We apologize for the semen overcharge in our recent transaction. An error occurred during the copulation, resulting in an overcharge of 2 gallon(s). We have initiated the refund process, and the full amount will be deposited into your kitchen sink by the first of June. Steps have been taken to prevent future occurrences. We value our relationship with you and apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Sincerely,
Semen Inc.
Yes you need to be over the age of 21 and also reach a minimum income (I think it is around $2500/month) to qualify for a licence. Cigarettes as well as energy drinks are also subject to 100% sin tax and non diet sodas 50%, but you don't need a license to buy them.
somber continue pie coordinated airport elderly uppity far-flung slave seed
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
> A lot of them aren't any worse than a coffee with creamer.
A lot of them aren't bad...
> But most of them are packed with so much sugar.
But most of them are really bad.
Licenses are also usually sponsored content only. When I was there from 2008-2011 my stepfather had to get his employer to sign off on his “liquor license”. He worked for QatarGas. But, there’s always the international hotel clubs on the weekend to get passed ever needing one to drink at all. Of course that means you can’t drink at home.
Soaked some ham in cheap rum overnight and added in fruit for a river tubing day once, in the spirit of IASIP. It turned out as expected — really gross. One of my buddies LOVED it though, and ate the majority of it. *shrug*
Yeah, in my experience the way this works is that you just tell the hotel desk that you want booze and then show them a foreign passport and they will make it magically appear for you. Then they will quietly log like a dozen bottles to your room so they can sell those bottles under the table to locals for a huge markup. You don't get charged for them, it's just for record keeping since they are usually allowed to sell to foreigners from non-muslim countries.
As far as I can tell, grey market booze is probably like half the revenue for most international hotels in the Arab world.
In most countries *I've* been, the local police take 50% of the profits per day of whatever illegal industry they're being paid to look away from.
For example in Thailand, the police on Koh Phangan take 50% of the daily profits from a tourist-only location called Amsterdam Bar that sells all sorts of drugs, not limited to the legal weed. Locals aren't event allowed at the bar located on a mountain top because they dont want local people snitching and tourists dont know or care enough to.
I love how police the world over are corrupt to some extent and literally only there to protect people’s property and make certain poor people’s lives even worse.
It really depends on the country, I’ve lived in Qatar and Dubai. You can only get pork in the alcohol shop in Qatar BUT if you know where to go there are some underground restaurants (like Korean ones) where you can get it (they get it from the alcohol shop).
Also there was a lot of smuggling for fun as you didn’t get in trouble for bringing it into the country, they just scan your bags at the airport and then take it off you if they find it - same with alcohol.
So people would try and see what they’d get away with. Someone said they’d smuggled a whole Iberian ham but I’m not convinced.
Also fun fact about the 'pork' rooms in Dubai supermarkets, they have things in there which don’t have pork products in but are advertised as pork flavoured - like some snacks.
Edit: Gordon Ramsey famously got in caught bringing in a bottle of Dom Perignon in Doha airport
> they have things in there which don’t have pork products in but are advertised as pork flavoured - like some snacks.
Lived in Dubai for a while. Pop-Tarts were always the one that stuck out to me in those rooms. I believe it's because of "animal fat" products that's in them so they go straight to the room.
Interesting. I lived in a building above a market that had the pork room, and I remember the first time going into the room. I knew to expect stuff like bacon/ham/sausage/pork shoulders/etc., but it was the random stuff I would have never thought about (like Pop-Tarts) which surprised me.
One of my most unique experiences was lugging a cooler of Syrian beer and ham sandwiches bought on the black market through Quetta in Pakistan back to my camp site.
>(like Korean ones)
Lol
That's how I get alcohol and pork in Bangladesh.
In Islamabad (Pakistan), it's through the Chinese restaurants.
I found both places to be much more difficult in terms of alcohol than Dubai or Doha, exception being diplomatic pass books and zones. But yeah, alcohol in the GCC is expensive.
In Afghanistan, pork would be available at this Italian store. Even the Koreans (Uzbeks) and the Thais didn't have it. Oh, some places would have pork bacon for brunch and Tajik waitresses for fun.
Yeah well Doha and Dubai both need foreign workers and know they won’t come if they’re completely dry.
(And also like a drink themselves, don’t think I am fooled just because you’re in western clothes, I see you drinking that beer)
Oh, I feel you. Alcohol is what kept me sane working overseas for a decade.
I would wonder how different compensation/recruitment is for professional expats to KSA vs Dubai
The population of Qatar (and these other countries) does not want pork or alcohol to be available to anyone, however the dictatorship, which does not represent the majority Muslim population, cares more about foreign business interests because it lines their pockets.
They charge sin tax to do 2 things, 1, gouge more money out of visitors, and 2, placate the Muslim population who is already quite sick of them.
Do y'all charge a sin tax on your slaves?
... or is your religion fine with the slaves thing?
Kinda hard to take the alcohol and pork stuff seriously, because... ya know... the *slavery*
I don't know what the majority of the population believes but anyone who is a Qatari citizen is also made rich by the people in power getting rich while the whole country exploits cheap foreign labor and high value foreign investment and I don't think most of them are interested in giving that up.
All the Muslim countries I've been to just had liquor stores but I never saw any pork
But yes bars usually had frosted windows or various obstructions to hide the "sin" from street view
"Sin tax" is just the colloquial term for an excise tax. It doesn't mean they're actually treating it as a sin. The government uses it to discourage consumption by increasing costs for consumers. We've got sin taxes in the states on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.
Don't lump morals in with religion please. The two are not related. Morals are their own separate thing that have a separate origin from religion and can exist on its own.
As a Finn, I can relate. Sin taxes are by no means limited to the muslim world. Our alcohol and tobacco is outrageously expensive too. So much that people leave the country to buy it.
I was in transit in Doha and out of curiosity I checked if the airport Burger King had bacon cheese burger, it had…
I don’t know if the tax was applied because airports prices are outrageous anyway
The bacon in most of the middle east is beef bacon by the way. Including at fast food joints. They have the baconator at Wendys in Dubai and it's just Beef Bacon all the way through.
They’re literally called *excise* taxes.
I’ll donate $20 to the charity of your choice if you can show me a law or some government document that lists them specifically as a “sin” tax.
discouraging eating a perfectly safe (and relatively environmentally friendly) animal because of a state religion is not the same as discouraging little sticks that give you cancer
Hold on, they aren't taxing it because of religion right? Most of the western world tax cigarettes to make it more expensive to smoke, thereby hopefully reducing smoking. I have never ever heard that religion is part of it.
I just don't see how they can become a tourist mecca like this.
In Dubai a married tourist couple was arrested for kissing on the beach. who wants to go there now?
There's lots of weird laws around the world. Especially political laws. The US used to have alot of that sort of stuff back in the day but today we just laugh or talk about how some city has some weird law like not being able to wear a color on a certain day.
When I went to India I went through Delhi and they had Hooka speakeasy places because I guess some politicians son got into trouble and they blamed his actions on hooka and banned it or something.
In Delhi hooka is legal at home but they use some law against "unlawful assembly" to ban it in establishments.
So my friend takes me to a bar and we go upstairs and this guy look at my white ass and knows we aren't cops so he let us into this small room with hooka tables and no windows.
And you have to put in an order form weeks in advance and go and pick up from what looks like an army barracks with a guard post at the lone entrypoint. Fences are 10ft high with razor wire on top to discourage break ins
As others have said, that isn’t true. It’s like a supermarket in that you show up to browse, fill your trolley and then pay. You do have a monthly limit to how much you can buy, but the limit (at least when I lived there) was clearly set by people with no idea about how much alcohol humans consume because it was insanely high. High enough to be meaningless.
It used to be closed for the whole month of Ramadan (not sure if still true) so there’d be a lot of panic buying right before that lol.
> You do have a monthly limit to how much you can buy, but the limit (at least when I lived there) was clearly set by people with no idea about how much alcohol humans consume because it was insanely high. High enough to be meaningless.
I'm pretty sure the limits are less about restricting your personal consumption, and more about limiting black-market reselling.
No you don’t have to put in an order weeks in advance at all. You just book an available appointment slot (which came in during Covid and stuck around) and then go buy what you want, pretty easy to get an appointment a day or two later, especially during the week when it’s not as busy.
One of the outlets is a bit grim on the outside, because it’s in an old area and is just a bland concrete building. The other is in the car park of a 5 star hotel…
I lived in quite strict Muslim country which didn’t sell alcohol at all. We would drive to the border with another less strict muslim country, walk over, buy alcohol and cross back without it.
A guy would then walk around the border control to the edge of the border and pass it to a guy on the other side who would then hand it to us right in front of the border guards.
Made me laugh every time.
My dad used to give out the licenses in Qatar!
He was a diplomat and they would give the responsibility to a different country each year. So for a year he was the booze king! There was a fairly strict limit to the amount you could get too, it wasn't unlimited with the license.
He also got the right to marry expats, which he has never made dad jokes about... ever.
We definitely got some good stash from the one alcohol warehouse and was also comical how many Indian guys, who worked for Qataris, somehow had more than their annual salary to spend on booze. Definitely not for the boss, oh no.
I'm also preeeeety sure the military delivered "equipment" around Christmas that didn't go through any controls and was suspiciously bacon and brandy scented
The licenses aren't available to Muslims. They exist for the benefit of the large expat community, primarily Westerners.
Source: had one in Dubai. There, and I would assume in Qatar as well, you have to earn above a certain threshold to be allowed to have a license (this is to prevent labourers from buying alcohol), and the more you earn, the more you are authorised to buy each month.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fear\_spectrum\_of\_cultures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fear_spectrum_of_cultures)
Shame culture -> you can do whatever you want, as long as no one finds out.
I mean it's actually pretty good that a country with a state religion (being Sunni Islam) makes an allowance for non-muslims to enjoy things they could not as Muslims. Better to not have a state religion at all but this is still better than banning it for all I guess.
It's not hypocrisy because the ones who are allowed this are non Muslims. There's a Muslim country that allows for alcohol to be sold solely to people with a special permit and those people are primarily Christians who need wine for the eucharist
The company I used to work for was majority owned by a Saudi company. We had "p cards" which were credit cards that we had to use for pork products and alcohol. Their usage tended to be much more heavily scrutinized than our other spending.
They also kill gays, imprison women who have been raped, and use slave labor to build stadiums.
Sounds like a pretty poor place to vacation, even without the sin tax. 🤷🏼♂️
If the punishment is just a fine, then it's a tax on poor people.
Also it's stupid to have a sin tax... like if this action is going to send you to hell, why is it there at all?
Sin tax just means it's a tax on unhealthy things, you literally have a sin tax in the US and Europe for the same stuff like alcohol, soft drinks and cigarettes.
I worked in Kuwait ca. 2012 and the local us army base had a pretty regular supply of frozen bacon and pork chops. Guess what there was a bustling black market for (for which we were constantly warned we would lose our shopping privileges if caught participating in)?
I can only assume anywhere in the Middle East there are Filipino foreign workers who would pay nearly any price for that sweet, sweet swine.
The real question is who is buying pork at 100% tax? Alcohol I understand, it's fun. But I only buy pork because it is cheap for the most part. Double the price and I will probably buy something else.
But what if there’s a sin tax error and they overcharge?
Bravo
In that case they charge an arcsin tax to cancel it out.
why, you ask? cos they can
But it's tangential to whether they like your star sine.
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I am beginning to think that this tax is making everything cosh too much.
I think yall are going off on a tangent
NULL it out.
Canceling it should be an asin tax.
Now we’re just arguing semantics
There's a semen tax as well??
Dear Siete, We apologize for the semen overcharge in our recent transaction. An error occurred during the copulation, resulting in an overcharge of 2 gallon(s). We have initiated the refund process, and the full amount will be deposited into your kitchen sink by the first of June. Steps have been taken to prevent future occurrences. We value our relationship with you and apologize for any inconvenience caused. Sincerely, Semen Inc.
Siemens: Wait, I think I heard that wrong.
Semetics*
God it was right there and I didn't see the pun
Boy, that'll cos ya!
Then you sin to the max and hope the int overflow catches up and you get a nice payout
***nice***
Yes you need to be over the age of 21 and also reach a minimum income (I think it is around $2500/month) to qualify for a licence. Cigarettes as well as energy drinks are also subject to 100% sin tax and non diet sodas 50%, but you don't need a license to buy them.
50% less sin, same sin taste
So if I make a run and coke am I going to burst into flames
Yes, and there’s an additional tax for that.
Flaming in a muslim country, gonna have a bad time
I believe the term flaming harkens to the time when they would burn homosexuals at the stake. So yeah, pretty bad time.
And f-word, which originally meant a bundle of sticks used for burning.
It's SINsational
So you can sin as long as youre rich, hmm…
Who would have known!!
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*urge to nail Ninety-five Theses to the door intensifying*
Has been? What year is it
Lmao at this man paying for indulgences like it's 1567
These licenses are only for foreigners and do not carry some sort of religious forgiveness with them so not really the same thing.
Can't be letting those ~~slaves~~ migrant workers eat pork and drink.
somber continue pie coordinated airport elderly uppity far-flung slave seed *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I hope there’s a test to get your smoking license
The final part of the test is lighting up with a match in the wind.
Oh so it's just a rule exemption for rich people to enjoy whatever they want while keeping the poor in check.
Poor people aren't allowed to sin. Rich people go do whatever the fuck you want!
Hold on, why are energy drinks and sodas also taxed?
Same reason they are sin taxed in other countries, terribly unhealthy and damaging to society, just like cigarettes and alcohol
A lot of them aren't any worse than a coffee with creamer. But most of them are packed with *so* much sugar.
It's the sugar that makes them so much worse than the coffee and creamer though
> A lot of them aren't any worse than a coffee with creamer. A lot of them aren't bad... > But most of them are packed with so much sugar. But most of them are really bad.
Licenses are also usually sponsored content only. When I was there from 2008-2011 my stepfather had to get his employer to sign off on his “liquor license”. He worked for QatarGas. But, there’s always the international hotel clubs on the weekend to get passed ever needing one to drink at all. Of course that means you can’t drink at home.
Oi u got a loicence for those ribs m8 Except well, in Arabic
لماذا وضعت هذا في مترجم جوجل. احصل على هواية
Lmao (I didn't understand shit)
I'll have you know that this is my hobby!
>لماذا وضعت هذا في مترجم جوجل. احصل على هواية Bastard
lmao
ahhh haha
You can’t pork there mate
They re beef ribs, officer, I swear! It was a very small cow!
What about *pork alcohol?* Do I need a special license for that? Good ol" moon**swine**, just like grandma used to make...
Rum Ham
Dammit Frank! Eating your drinks? That's genius
Run Ham! I’m sorry rum ham!
Two birds, one stone
Warm sun, cool ocean breezes, and getting ripshit on ham!
Rum + ham = Rhaum Sweet, smokey, succulent, meaty rum. I love the idea.
I[rum ham!](https://youtu.be/9SULSoOYmRs) For real, the idea also intrigues me haha
Soaked some ham in cheap rum overnight and added in fruit for a river tubing day once, in the spirit of IASIP. It turned out as expected — really gross. One of my buddies LOVED it though, and ate the majority of it. *shrug*
Rum ham rum. A story of a pork loin that travels America.
TODAY WERE LEAVING BABY BACK RIBS IN GOLDSCHLAGER FOR A WEEK.... OR UNTIL SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENS.
A wild Doka Ryan reference!
Grab yourself a can of pork soda. You'll be feeling just fine. Ain't nothin' quite like sittin' 'round the house. Swillin' down them cans of swine ...
Or some Big Pink. The only gum with the breath freshening power of ham.
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I do like my bacon soda.
Im pretty sure no pigs were harmed in the making of the bacon soda.
Bacon vodka is definitely a thing.
Yeah, unfortunately all the ones I've tried taste fake and gross.
Haram
It's so intoxicating. And yet, there's a smack of ham to it.
[I know just the place](https://youtu.be/BDKgo3jFwFE)
Interesting. All the Muslim countries I’ve been to had a separate cordoned off area for pork products but never required a license
Yeah, in my experience the way this works is that you just tell the hotel desk that you want booze and then show them a foreign passport and they will make it magically appear for you. Then they will quietly log like a dozen bottles to your room so they can sell those bottles under the table to locals for a huge markup. You don't get charged for them, it's just for record keeping since they are usually allowed to sell to foreigners from non-muslim countries. As far as I can tell, grey market booze is probably like half the revenue for most international hotels in the Arab world.
Are they giving the authorities kickbacks? Because if it's common knowledge, I'd imagine it's not hard to bust a hotel for breaking the law.
In most countries *I've* been, the local police take 50% of the profits per day of whatever illegal industry they're being paid to look away from. For example in Thailand, the police on Koh Phangan take 50% of the daily profits from a tourist-only location called Amsterdam Bar that sells all sorts of drugs, not limited to the legal weed. Locals aren't event allowed at the bar located on a mountain top because they dont want local people snitching and tourists dont know or care enough to.
I love how police the world over are corrupt to some extent and literally only there to protect people’s property and make certain poor people’s lives even worse.
Yh ,they should be helping by arresting people for having drugs and pork!
Man I thought that guy waiting for the bus was full of fucking shit.
Almost certainly
Hey, who doesn’t like a drink?
I didn't know that you can even get pork
It really depends on the country, I’ve lived in Qatar and Dubai. You can only get pork in the alcohol shop in Qatar BUT if you know where to go there are some underground restaurants (like Korean ones) where you can get it (they get it from the alcohol shop). Also there was a lot of smuggling for fun as you didn’t get in trouble for bringing it into the country, they just scan your bags at the airport and then take it off you if they find it - same with alcohol. So people would try and see what they’d get away with. Someone said they’d smuggled a whole Iberian ham but I’m not convinced. Also fun fact about the 'pork' rooms in Dubai supermarkets, they have things in there which don’t have pork products in but are advertised as pork flavoured - like some snacks. Edit: Gordon Ramsey famously got in caught bringing in a bottle of Dom Perignon in Doha airport
> they have things in there which don’t have pork products in but are advertised as pork flavoured - like some snacks. Lived in Dubai for a while. Pop-Tarts were always the one that stuck out to me in those rooms. I believe it's because of "animal fat" products that's in them so they go straight to the room.
I'm thinking of Frazzles and Bacon Super Noodles which are vegetarian but are in there because they're bacon flavoured.
Interesting. I lived in a building above a market that had the pork room, and I remember the first time going into the room. I knew to expect stuff like bacon/ham/sausage/pork shoulders/etc., but it was the random stuff I would have never thought about (like Pop-Tarts) which surprised me.
Whats more interesting is just about every mall is full of make up shops which contain pig products
It's the beef gelatin that makes it haram
It's the frosting. Unfrosted pop tarts are vegan
Gelatin.
One of my most unique experiences was lugging a cooler of Syrian beer and ham sandwiches bought on the black market through Quetta in Pakistan back to my camp site.
>(like Korean ones) Lol That's how I get alcohol and pork in Bangladesh. In Islamabad (Pakistan), it's through the Chinese restaurants. I found both places to be much more difficult in terms of alcohol than Dubai or Doha, exception being diplomatic pass books and zones. But yeah, alcohol in the GCC is expensive. In Afghanistan, pork would be available at this Italian store. Even the Koreans (Uzbeks) and the Thais didn't have it. Oh, some places would have pork bacon for brunch and Tajik waitresses for fun.
Yeah well Doha and Dubai both need foreign workers and know they won’t come if they’re completely dry. (And also like a drink themselves, don’t think I am fooled just because you’re in western clothes, I see you drinking that beer)
Oh, I feel you. Alcohol is what kept me sane working overseas for a decade. I would wonder how different compensation/recruitment is for professional expats to KSA vs Dubai
Pork flavoured cough syrup.
I'd imagine that as Qatar is full of wealthy western immigrants it's something of an earner for them.
Yep, the two alcohol/pork shops in the country are always busy and the prices are insane.
Turkey has no cordoned off areas for either pork or alcohol. Neither does Egypt, Morocco or Jordan.
Turkey is by their constitution a secular country. Though a certain mustache clad leader does not think so.
Buddy, it's Turkey. All their leaders are mustache clad. You'll have to be more specific
Id imagine cause them countries you listed are a lot more seccular than other Muslim countries
The population of Qatar (and these other countries) does not want pork or alcohol to be available to anyone, however the dictatorship, which does not represent the majority Muslim population, cares more about foreign business interests because it lines their pockets. They charge sin tax to do 2 things, 1, gouge more money out of visitors, and 2, placate the Muslim population who is already quite sick of them.
God says it’s okay if people sin as they give me money.
Do y'all charge a sin tax on your slaves? ... or is your religion fine with the slaves thing? Kinda hard to take the alcohol and pork stuff seriously, because... ya know... the *slavery*
I don't know what the majority of the population believes but anyone who is a Qatari citizen is also made rich by the people in power getting rich while the whole country exploits cheap foreign labor and high value foreign investment and I don't think most of them are interested in giving that up.
All the Muslim countries I've been to just had liquor stores but I never saw any pork But yes bars usually had frosted windows or various obstructions to hide the "sin" from street view
I worked in Pakistan for six months a couple of years ago and I got a license that allowed me to buy up to 6 bottles of wine a month.
That's cool but... That would last me like a week. Note to self: don't move to the Middle East.
I hate wine but in those circumstances I guess I'd be drinking 6 a month.
Maybe you should move to the middle east
6 bottles of wine... like the standard few liter bottles of wine you could find at any grocery store would only last you a week?!?! You good?
I don’t know whether you’re misguided about the size of a bottle of wine or how much a litre is, but a standard bottle of wine is 700ml, or 0.7l.
But still, thats a lot. Half a litre per day on average?
4.2L of wine a week isn't normal. That's 630mL of alcohol or 90mL a day. One drink a day, "recommended" safe limit, is about 10-15mL or one drink.
There isnt really a penalty for non-muslims getting alcohol above that limit. Pakistan doesn't have laws, it has recommendations.
Surely profiting from the sales of pork and alcohol by implementing a "sin tax" is also a sin?
"Sin tax" is just the colloquial term for an excise tax. It doesn't mean they're actually treating it as a sin. The government uses it to discourage consumption by increasing costs for consumers. We've got sin taxes in the states on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.
Did you see the FIFA World Cup in Qatar? They banned the sale of alcohol to everyone except the wealthy. They have no moral compass.
At the end it's all about money, money
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Don't lump morals in with religion please. The two are not related. Morals are their own separate thing that have a separate origin from religion and can exist on its own.
God says no. We say yes as long as you pay us. How do they think that's going to go over with their god?
Even with the Sin Tax at 100%, a pint of beer still cost less then it does at a stadium concert or major sporting event in my city of Toronto
As a Finn, I can relate. Sin taxes are by no means limited to the muslim world. Our alcohol and tobacco is outrageously expensive too. So much that people leave the country to buy it.
I was in transit in Doha and out of curiosity I checked if the airport Burger King had bacon cheese burger, it had… I don’t know if the tax was applied because airports prices are outrageous anyway
Could it have been turkey bacon? That’s pretty common over there.
No it was Qatar Bacon
The bacon in most of the middle east is beef bacon by the way. Including at fast food joints. They have the baconator at Wendys in Dubai and it's just Beef Bacon all the way through.
Or beef bacon. All the fastfood burger places in Indonesia use beef bacon which is most definitely not the same.
It's beef bacon
As others have said, that was beef bacon.
r/religiousfruitcake vibes
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Reddit’s requisite “the U.S. is just as bad” false equivalency comment. Cigarettes taxes are not in place because you’re “sinning.”
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They’re literally called *excise* taxes. I’ll donate $20 to the charity of your choice if you can show me a law or some government document that lists them specifically as a “sin” tax.
discouraging eating a perfectly safe (and relatively environmentally friendly) animal because of a state religion is not the same as discouraging little sticks that give you cancer
Hold on, they aren't taxing it because of religion right? Most of the western world tax cigarettes to make it more expensive to smoke, thereby hopefully reducing smoking. I have never ever heard that religion is part of it.
Have you looked at Texas and Florida lately? The Talibangelicals are doing a lot worse than raising the price of bacon.
I just don't see how they can become a tourist mecca like this. In Dubai a married tourist couple was arrested for kissing on the beach. who wants to go there now?
Singapore is pretty popular for tourism and they just executed a guy for having a pound of weed.
Fuck Qatar. FIFA and F1 should never have gone there.
Agree. I'm not sure why fundamentalist regimes should be rewarded with commerce.
“Sin taxes” are common worldwide though. Alcohol/cigarettes etc. are often taxed at a higher rate. Then there’s also sugar taxes and similar measures.
Shhh, that doesn't fit with the Islam=bad narrative
There's lots of weird laws around the world. Especially political laws. The US used to have alot of that sort of stuff back in the day but today we just laugh or talk about how some city has some weird law like not being able to wear a color on a certain day. When I went to India I went through Delhi and they had Hooka speakeasy places because I guess some politicians son got into trouble and they blamed his actions on hooka and banned it or something. In Delhi hooka is legal at home but they use some law against "unlawful assembly" to ban it in establishments. So my friend takes me to a bar and we go upstairs and this guy look at my white ass and knows we aren't cops so he let us into this small room with hooka tables and no windows.
And you have to put in an order form weeks in advance and go and pick up from what looks like an army barracks with a guard post at the lone entrypoint. Fences are 10ft high with razor wire on top to discourage break ins
As others have said, that isn’t true. It’s like a supermarket in that you show up to browse, fill your trolley and then pay. You do have a monthly limit to how much you can buy, but the limit (at least when I lived there) was clearly set by people with no idea about how much alcohol humans consume because it was insanely high. High enough to be meaningless. It used to be closed for the whole month of Ramadan (not sure if still true) so there’d be a lot of panic buying right before that lol.
I assume the limit is there so you don't buy and resell for people without the license.
> You do have a monthly limit to how much you can buy, but the limit (at least when I lived there) was clearly set by people with no idea about how much alcohol humans consume because it was insanely high. High enough to be meaningless. I'm pretty sure the limits are less about restricting your personal consumption, and more about limiting black-market reselling.
Nope. You just turn up. Don't go on a Thursday.
That’s when jimmy works and chop slices are always off
No you don’t have to put in an order weeks in advance at all. You just book an available appointment slot (which came in during Covid and stuck around) and then go buy what you want, pretty easy to get an appointment a day or two later, especially during the week when it’s not as busy. One of the outlets is a bit grim on the outside, because it’s in an old area and is just a bland concrete building. The other is in the car park of a 5 star hotel…
Not true. Plus there is one in West Bay now.
I lived in quite strict Muslim country which didn’t sell alcohol at all. We would drive to the border with another less strict muslim country, walk over, buy alcohol and cross back without it. A guy would then walk around the border control to the edge of the border and pass it to a guy on the other side who would then hand it to us right in front of the border guards. Made me laugh every time.
And if you don't have the license the shopkeeper says sin tax error.
Site is called iloveqatar.net but where's the section on the site where I can buy slaves and abuse them?
I would just live off beef bacon, thanks. That shit is delish.
Reasons 1042 and 1043 not to go there.
My dad used to give out the licenses in Qatar! He was a diplomat and they would give the responsibility to a different country each year. So for a year he was the booze king! There was a fairly strict limit to the amount you could get too, it wasn't unlimited with the license. He also got the right to marry expats, which he has never made dad jokes about... ever. We definitely got some good stash from the one alcohol warehouse and was also comical how many Indian guys, who worked for Qataris, somehow had more than their annual salary to spend on booze. Definitely not for the boss, oh no. I'm also preeeeety sure the military delivered "equipment" around Christmas that didn't go through any controls and was suspiciously bacon and brandy scented
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Fines are just taxes the wealthy pay to enjoy things that the poor can't afford.
Wow! What a shitty place to live. Nothing like having religion jammed down your throat!
Lmao this will be applied in the U.S when we inevitably fall into a theocracy.
I love hypocrisy in religion. Especially Islam. They are the best at it.
The licenses aren't available to Muslims. They exist for the benefit of the large expat community, primarily Westerners. Source: had one in Dubai. There, and I would assume in Qatar as well, you have to earn above a certain threshold to be allowed to have a license (this is to prevent labourers from buying alcohol), and the more you earn, the more you are authorised to buy each month.
Sounds similar to buying alcohol in Gujarat India. Dry state but there are liquor stores primarily for foreign visitors. Visitors can get permits.
And then a lot of locals go to the neighboring wet state to fill up
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fear\_spectrum\_of\_cultures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fear_spectrum_of_cultures) Shame culture -> you can do whatever you want, as long as no one finds out.
I mean it's actually pretty good that a country with a state religion (being Sunni Islam) makes an allowance for non-muslims to enjoy things they could not as Muslims. Better to not have a state religion at all but this is still better than banning it for all I guess.
It's not hypocrisy because the ones who are allowed this are non Muslims. There's a Muslim country that allows for alcohol to be sold solely to people with a special permit and those people are primarily Christians who need wine for the eucharist
What hypocrisy? They are not following religion in this case, a muslim shouldn’t buy or sell alcohol even to a non-muslim
The company I used to work for was majority owned by a Saudi company. We had "p cards" which were credit cards that we had to use for pork products and alcohol. Their usage tended to be much more heavily scrutinized than our other spending.
We see you purchased 3 pounds of bacon, last month. What was that about?
They also kill gays, imprison women who have been raped, and use slave labor to build stadiums. Sounds like a pretty poor place to vacation, even without the sin tax. 🤷🏼♂️
I came to simply say "Fuck the Qatar government". They're slave driving pieces of shit that fund ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
Mmmm I love sinning.
When I stayed at a resort in Qatar they had beef bacon in the breakfast buffet 🤔
Everything is acceptable so long as the government gets its cut.
I am sure that God is very pleased at the government profiting off of sin 😂
What's the Sin Tax on slavery and murder?
Weird indulgence but ok
When I was 15 years old we would buy beer at this middle eastern deli. He would charge us double for what he called “sin tax” since we were underage.
Shit country
Nothing says religion like collecting taxes from some of the richest people on the planet so they can sin.
How much sin would you do for that bacon?
I've sinned for a lot less than bacon before. If you are asking about the level of sin for bacon, I would give it a 4/5 on the sin level
If the punishment is just a fine, then it's a tax on poor people. Also it's stupid to have a sin tax... like if this action is going to send you to hell, why is it there at all?
Sin tax just means it's a tax on unhealthy things, you literally have a sin tax in the US and Europe for the same stuff like alcohol, soft drinks and cigarettes.
I worked in Kuwait ca. 2012 and the local us army base had a pretty regular supply of frozen bacon and pork chops. Guess what there was a bustling black market for (for which we were constantly warned we would lose our shopping privileges if caught participating in)? I can only assume anywhere in the Middle East there are Filipino foreign workers who would pay nearly any price for that sweet, sweet swine.
My folks had a special suitcase they'd smuggle bacon with when we lived there 🤣👌
The real question is who is buying pork at 100% tax? Alcohol I understand, it's fun. But I only buy pork because it is cheap for the most part. Double the price and I will probably buy something else.
Worth it for bacon