Comment: Of Nightclubs, Goa Tourism & Fire Risk
Pamela D'Mello
December 11, 2025
By Pamela D’Mello
From a longer video of the Arpora Night Club Fire on the night of December 6-7 and the Goa Chief Minister’s statement, it’s clear a stray spark from pyrotechnics during a belly dancing routine, seems to have caught the low, flammable roof. Built of eco-friendly palm, cane and wood, on a water body, the place went ablaze in minutes; panic, smoke and limited exits, fatally trapping unaware staff in a basement kitchen and some tourist guests.
Collective grief at the loss of lives will seek accountability, compensation, blame. The television media frenzy, bolstered by social media keep the pressure on, from every angle; not always fair.
But let’s pause a minute and consider deeper systemic issues.
From 2012, a BJP government, for reasons best known to itself, reset Goa’s seasonal (October-May) foreign international tourism orientation, towards a domestic 365-day product, taking promotional road shows into small town India, ostensibly to garner new markets. Additional infrastructure, bridges, night clubs, increased hotels and flight connectivity, electronic music festivals followed this diversification.
When this marketing pitch succeeded beyond expectation, the post-liberalisation, cash-rich domestic tourism segment it brought in, filled the casino ships, buoyed nightlife tourism and mega festivals ; but crashed the remainder of the foreign market (seeking rustic, relaxed beach holidays) and trashed the North Goa product (until then with local providers), significantly. One can speculate why this tact was pursued, but it changed the nature of life for local citizens in the tourism belt.
Weekend drive-ins clog North Goa roads, driving under the influence, traffic fatalities registered an uptick; while littering and beach behaviour patterns make the foreign and domestic tourism markets incompatible. A consequent drop in the destination’s international footprint, eroded its premium tag. Simultaneously, an emphasis on growing domestic numbers also included segments of budget male-getaway tourism, seeking a seedier experience.
Politically connected persons made fortunes from increased licensing to roadside and beachhead retail liquor outlets, that encouraged alcohol consumption in public places, until citizen and stakeholder outrage forced some checks.
While Goa may have notched an economic success story under the regime; its cultural life received a setback along the northern coastal belts. Beleaguered and besieged fishing communities-turned shack owners and tourism establishments — receiving little policing help from government (and questionable treatment) to manage touts, beach salespersons and public consumption of alcohol — were driven to a stage where they had to prohibit their own families from the beach. Local entrepreneurs continued their businesses in the inundated, overwhelmed beach villages, but shifted family homes to more family-friendly areas when possible.
Meanwhile, increased tourism-driven real estate market spawned holiday second home spaces. These, in turn opened up Airbnb rentals; a resultant product overcapacity (from room rentals, restaurants, spas, casinos to nightclubs), besides overall competition in a domestic buyer’s market. All of this, playing out in a climate where Goa’s new political class — the former agricultural tenant-owner turned real estate entrepreneur, is jockeying for market space and influence, with competing Indian big-city investors — each leveraging their own bureaucratic, political and influencer/media cards to outplay the other.
This seems to be the case in the Arpora fire property. Multiple complaints, civil suits between former and current owners, questionable constructions in an area where the outline development plan (ODPs) have been legally questioned by NGOs, citizens and the courts.
Post the fire, the state government has tightened controls over tourism establishments, but responsible tourism requires more.
When sections of tourists see the state as a place to indulge in reckless behaviour — how long before something crashes from time to time, singeing both themselves and the hapless workers and people around?
For some holidayers, Goa evokes that sense of binge fun.
This hit home personally at a family celebration dinner at a restaurant in coastal North Goa, a couple years ago. Once a charming restaurant catering to the chartered tourist crowd, it had become unrecognizable. Post nine pm, a makeshift stage lit up with strobes and dancers. Soon, the young tourist crowd got wilder; clambering onto the wooden tables and chairs; whooping to the music and giving ‘over-the-top’ vibes. There might not have been electronic fireworks. Yet, one eye marking out the exits, in case things got too rowdy, we wound up and left.
Inexperienced service providers, competing in a crowded marketplace, to provide nightclub experiences to clearly uninitiated tourists seeking a wild time, are skating on thin ice; reflected in the frequent fisticuffs that break out between overenthusiastic, oftentimes inebriated tourists and the establishment’s bouncers. When pyrotechnics are set off indoors to notch up the glam, it is only luck that prevents disaster. Eco-friendly decor, like Birch’s, is fine and perfect for sedate dining venues. When they double up as nightclubs post dusk, as some places do, and include fireworks in the entertainment mix; the risk increases. Howsoever equipped an establishment is with fire safety equipment; the response window may be extremely small and the price of meeting the domestic tourism segment’s demands for showy glitz, proves fatal.
Tough questions and accountability can and should be asked of owners and authorities. But bad tourist behaviour must be discouraged. The notion that Goa can be that place in India where anything goes, has to undergo an urgent reset.
While on the subject of fireworks, it might not hurt to remember that nightclubs are not the only ones playing with fire. So are our religious and other festivals, for one.
Consider what having excessive spending power (and arrogance) is doing to our beloved religious festivals. The music has gotten ear-splittingly louder (trance at high decibels may not be your neighbour’s cup of tea), and all the gods will not be able to avert tragedies, if firecrackers are flung irresponsibly (as they are) in narrow lanes, near flammable motor vehicles, residential homes and overhead electric wires. Anyone living close to a pond, would watch in growing alarm as each procession winds down the road; reminiscing for a time not long ago, when the celebrations were melodious, meaningful and magical.
Fire accidents sparked by fireworks in other parts of the country are woefully regular: an urbanizing Goa is sadly, joining that mainstream.
Surely, as a civilization, we should be willing to police ourselves. If policing — rather than common sense, decency, decorum, respect and self-restraint — is expected to be the only deterrent, then the question is how much and how effective, can it ever possibly be?
It may be easier for current politics to throw money at community festival organizers to win popularity, votes and elections, than it is to govern or recreate the national character we were once proud of. One can be certain though, that it is not doing our civilization any favours. (ends)
Of Nightclubs, Goa Tourism & Fire Risk
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