Around 50 residents of Manaveli were arrested after they picketed the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Excise in Thattanchavady on Monday demanding the shifting of an arrack shop.
The residents sat on dharna in front of the shop and raised slogans against the Excise department.
They claimed that the arrack shop was located near a school and had become a nuisance to the neighbourhood and had resulted in several unsavoury incidents in the residential colony.
Daily wage labourers spend most of their earnings to consume arrack in the shop which has adversely affected their families.
The protestors said they made repeated representations to the authorities and staged demonstration on several occasions to close the arrack shop or shift it to a different location. But all pleas fell on deaf ears, they said. The protestors were arrested and later released in the evening.
