A street in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah, pictured on 14 January 2025. [Getty]
Saudi Arabia’s only official alcohol shop has run short of supplies ranging from beer and wine to tequila, as the disruption caused by the Iran war has delayed shipments, visitors to the store said.
Situated in Riyadh’s diplomatic district, the shop, which has no name and no sign, opened in 2024 to serve non-Muslim diplomats and last year expanded to cater for wealthy non-Muslim foreign residents.
Officially Saudi Arabia’s 1952 blanket ban on alcohol remains in place, but the ultra-conservative kingdom has allowed one licensed shop as it tries to lure more expatriates.
For now, however, the shelves are mostly bare, with only expensive or little-known brands on offer, five people who have visited the Riyadh shop in recent days said.
One Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no white wine and “only a few bottles of super expensive red”.
“They also got a shipment of random beer,” the diplomat added.
Long queues and frayed nerves
The shortages have led to long lines outside the Riyadh store and foreign residents have been leaving work in the middle of the day to try their luck, with nerves sometimes fraying and leading to altercations, the visitors who spoke to Reuters said.
They said staff at the shop told them shipments from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which have more liberal alcohol rules than Saudi Arabia, had been delayed.
The Riyadh outlet, however discreet and tightly controlled, represents a milestone in efforts led by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to open up Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam.
Before the shop opened, people in Saudi Arabia had recourse only to home brew, diplomatic channels or the black market, where cost and quality varied widely.
Reuters reported last year that Saudi Arabia was planning to open two more alcohol stores – one in Jeddah and another to serve foreigners at Saudi state oil company Aramco in the east – but three people said that had not yet happened.
The Saudi Government Media Office did not respond to a request for comment on whether there was a shortage of alcohol and if they were doing anything to address it.
(Reuters)
