Czechs Ban Hard Liquor Sales After Methanol Poisonings PRAGUE - The Czech Republic has banned the sale of liquor containing 20 percent or higher alcohol content after at least 20 people were killed and dozens of others were seriously injured from consuming methanol-tainted spirits. The poisonings have raised questions about the effectiveness of European Union and Czech safeguards against bootleg alcohol, which has plagued the Czech market for decades. The country has the world's second-largest rate of hard alcohol consumption, after Moldova, according to the World Health Organization. The poisonings, which began about two weeks ago, have also brought into focus the penchant of the country's less well off for hard alcohol on the lowest rung of the market. According to Czech News Agency, Vladimr Lipina, a 51-year-old car Czech factory worker from the industrial town of Havirov and one of those affected, bought a bottle of rum from a street kiosk on his way to a soccer game two weeks ago. He said he had a few shots but thought that the drink tasted strange. Four days after his pregame celebration, Mr. Lipina became blind. "I woke up with a terrible headache and stomachache, but I thought I would just get over it," Mr. Lipina was quoted as saying. Doctors are not optimistic he will ever see again. The spirits that blinded Mr. Lipina have led to the deaths of at least 20 people in the country and made another 40 seriously ill, some with brain damage. The death toll has shaken the Czech Republic, caused panic throughout Eastern Europe and prompted the government ban, which the Czech government said could last for several weeks, until officials believe that consumers are safe. Alarm is growing that the crisis is spreading beyond Czech borders after eight people fell ill in Slovakia after drinking plum brandy bought in the Czech Republic. Poland, in response to the crisis, banned the import and sale of Czech-made spirits for 30 days. Czech law enforcement officials said Monday that they were investigating whether the methanol-tainted spirits were contaminated by Polish-made antifreeze. The police have arrested 23 people, a majority of them hard-alcohol distributors. Vaclav Kucera, the deputy police chief, said on Sunday on Czech television that he believed the tainted alcohol had come from a single source. Police officials said they believed the alcohol that was laced with methanol, a chemical used in industrial items like fuel and antifreeze, had been sold at a discount using fake labels from at least two Czech liquor makers in bottles that were not properly sealed and were labeled as vodka or other local spirits. The poisoning does not appear to have been intentional but rather a byproduct of illicit distributors trying to squeeze profits, officials said. The prohibition, meanwhile, is expected to have a damaging effect on the economy. The Czech Republic, which has instituted austerity measures to reduce its deficit, is set to lose $40 million a month in liquor taxes, according to the Finance Ministry. Mag Consulting, a Prague-based company that analyzes the travel industry, estimates a daily loss of $10.7 million in revenue for bars, restaurants and hotels because of the alcohol ban. The sale of illegally manufactured liquor, abetted by distributors and even retailers, constitutes 25 percent of the Czech liquor market, according to the country's Association of Spirit Producers. The government puts the figure at closer to 10 percent. The toxic spirits, including vodka and rum, were mostly purchased at stores and kiosks in the depressed region of northern Moravia. In several cases, whole families have fallen ill. The police on Wednesday found the body of a 28-year-old woman, the mother of an 8-year-old boy, at her home in Komorni Lhotka, a small northeastern village; her 60-year-old father was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Tests showed that they had been poisoned with methanol, although it is not clear where they had bought the tainted spirits. Despite the rising death toll, there was some relief for those who went to the hospital after noticing their alcohol tasted strange and with symptoms like blurred vision and nausea. Victims are now being treated with a Norwegian drug, fomepizole, which has proved highly effective, though costly, in ridding the body of methanol. Some analysts and politicians have questioned why the underlying cause of the poisonings - the trade in black-market liquor - has not been sufficiently addressed by the government. Jiri Pehe, a frequent critic of the center-right government and an adviser to Vaclav Havel when he was president, attributed the crisis to a national aversion to state regulation after four decades of Communist rule. "This is a long-term problem we have had here since 1989," he said. The state has been seen as some kind of enemy, contaminated, like the alcohol, by all sorts of impurities. Urosh Lazareuich, a longtime resident of the Vinohrady neighborhood in Prague who said he eschews alcohol, blamed what he called a cozy relationship between illegal producers and local authorities. "The state tolerated illegal alcohol production for a very long time," he said. No one cared until someone died. Jan Hamacek, a Social Democratic opposition member of Parliament, suggested that an American-style licensing system would help protect consumers. "There are no cash registers at kiosks, and without receipts you cannot check if the alcohol is coming from some nutty derelict in a garage," he said. But with prohibition of powerful spirits now in place, it is not only the poor who are suffering the consequences. Even though Czech brands of spirits are not particularly popular in upmarket cocktail bars, those establishments are also suffering financially as a result of the ban. "Over the weekend, we had about half our usual business," said Martina Pestova, manager of Prague's popular Bar and Books, known for its whiskey cocktails. "We are being creative and offering "sake-tinis" instead of vodka martinis, but if prohibition continues, it will be financial hell."