18 bars have been shut down on Hong Mofang Street in Shenzhen’s Longhua New Zone after police discovered they were all unlicensed during the investigation of a murder which took place Oct. 11, Chinese-language media have reported.

At 1 a.m. on Oct. 11, a man surnamed Chen drunkenly attacked a man surnamed Tang with a knife after mistakenly thinking he was starting a fight in Gemi Bar. Tang was stabbed in the chest and didn’t survive, Chen was detained.

An investigation into the bar showed it had inadequate fire safety equipment, and a further investigation showed that many of the bars lacked fire safety equipment or their existing equipment had expired.

The city’s Ministry of Culture discovered that all of the bars had seen their licences expire in 2009 or 2010. Authorities in Longhua explained that their cooperation with the Baoan District government had decreased in recent years as they had been given more autonomy.

For this reason, there was a failure to delegate responsibility.

In May of this year, Lu Yi, Party chief of Longhua New Zone told reporters: “Longhua is planning 200 billion yuan (US$32 billion) of investments in the next five years to become a high-standard, booming region. The GDP will increase 100 billion yuan by 2015.” Good luck with that.

In 2008, a nightclub fire caused by a fireworks display in Longgang District killed 43 and injured 65. 13 people were arrested, which was presumably as much in the name of Darwinism as it was in the name of justice.