What Would You Do ?

[Maigo6]

It won't be Thais, it's Jealous Farang territory in my opinion.

Greg, give the Police 10,000 Baht to throw the book at them.

[chownah]

depends where the fire was and how big it was.

if it was small enough and far enough away from awnings etc. (like in the middle of the parking lot with no vehicles there) then it should be dealt with more leniently...a prank although a really stupid one.

depends on the motive...as yet still undetermined.

[meemiathai]

It won't be Thais, it's Jealous Farang territory in my opinion.

Greg, give the Police 10,000 Baht to throw the book at them.

I thought so but I thought farangs won't be "adults with dolls and Hello Kitty stuff"?

I thought farangs won't find peoples' suffering humorous?

Edited September 18, 2007 by meemiathai

[taxexile]

they should be prosecuted , it was a stupid thing to do , and could have got out of hand , and i for one get tired of hearing drunkeness used as an excuse for dangerous behaviour. you dont need friends like that.

prosecute them and hope they get punished seriously.

(a less serious punishment would be free subways for a month , but thats another story !!)

[KhunDennis]

In my humble opinion , getting drunk is no excuse for bad behavior, but a lot of people try to use it for an excuse. They need to be shown that, there are consequences for their actions.

A good slap on the hand could be enough to enough to make them think next time. I would not get too carried away, but they should be made to realize they did wrong.

[lazeeboy]

What would you do?

Get a call from my wife. Some clown started a fire at one of my restaurants in the Nana area this morning at 4 a.m. The police have him and his friend in jail and they claim to know me from the Thaivisa forum, Both have no passport and no name so no idea who he is. My wife wants to press charges. On one hand I know a prank like this could of gotten haywire very fast with people dieing,on the other hand it seems they were drunk and were laughing as they lit the display. My understanding is no big damage.

I would hope, friends of mine don't go around endangering lives of other people. Guess when he is no longer drunk, he'll tell his name, now its my name is " No name"

Then what do I do when he sings another tune.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

charge him ,drunk or not ,pranks like this are childish ,they deserve everything coming to them .........

[Neeranam]

Don't press charges - unless you want your house burned down.

[Prakanong]

So they will still not give a name?

Just ask the police to forget about them in the cell for a few days till they remember - I doubt its very nice in there.

I once saw the cells in Lumpini when they had put a guy who grabbed the ex by the breast and neck - he looked realy sorry for himself in there and it was going to cost him

[Aussietraveller]

Friends do not set fire to your business.

Let the police sort them.

Next time they do this someone could get killed.

[mrtoad]

Arson is always treated as one of the most serious crimes by the courts in the UK, because of the potential danger to life. I have come across a number of people in the CJS, who have had very long sentences for what could only be classed as pretty small scale arson.

No sympathy for these two muppets, they deserve to get a very heavy book thrown at them.

[mikethevigoman]

What would you do?

Get a call from my wife. Some clown started a fire at one of my restaurants in the Nana area this morning at 4 a.m. The police have him and his friend in jail and they claim to know me from the Thaivisa forum, Both have no passport and no name so no idea who he is. My wife wants to press charges. On one hand I know a prank like this could of gotten haywire very fast with people dieing,on the other hand it seems they were drunk and were laughing as they lit the display. My understanding is no big damage.

I would hope, friends of mine don't go around endangering lives of other people. Guess when he is no longer drunk, he'll tell his name, now its my name is " No name"

Then what do I do when he sings another tune.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

Either way you dont need friends like that,id press charges ( at least for the damages ) how can you know them if they dont give their names ?, they cant assume its personal ,.sounds like a couple dickheads and either way id avoid any personal dealings with them,

[colino]

tell the police that you want to sting them for 50,000 baht each for the damage and hassle the fire caused and then give the cops a bit of cash to keep them locked up for a few days ,and let the police charge them for failing to carry there passports

[mikethevigoman]

What would you do?

Get a call from my wife. Some clown started a fire at one of my restaurants in the Nana area this morning at 4 a.m. The police have him and his friend in jail and they claim to know me from the Thaivisa forum, Both have no passport and no name so no idea who he is. My wife wants to press charges. On one hand I know a prank like this could of gotten haywire very fast with people dieing,on the other hand it seems they were drunk and were laughing as they lit the display. My understanding is no big damage.

I would hope, friends of mine don't go around endangering lives of other people. Guess when he is no longer drunk, he'll tell his name, now its my name is " No name"

Then what do I do when he sings another tune.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

Go and see them, if you dont recognise them treat them as if they are just a pair of strangers that commited arson on your premises, nothing personal, let the law deal with it, simple

[mikethevigoman]

It won't be Thais, it's Jealous Farang territory in my opinion.

Greg, give the Police 10,000 Baht to throw the book at them.

Im inclined to agree, just a couple of @ssholes that you dont need as friends as far as i can see,and name dropping that they know you, is that some form of permission to light up ? i dont think so.

[Furbie]

Being drunk is no excuse, but I would certainly try to find out the circumstances before I subjected someone to the Thai judicial system. If it was something stupid that got out of hand and the person was not some problem piece of slime, I would ask for restitution, including a little something for the problem caused as opposed to pressing chargers. Basically I would work it out Thai style - money to all the aggrieved; you, the police, staff, etc. Again, this would depend upon the person and the reason, though someone refusing to provide a name doesn't seem the most likely candidate for sympathy.

[PeaceBlondie]

Greg, my guess is that you don't even know them, they are not your friends, you owe them no special courtesy. You needn't make them enemies for life, but you could go in as Mr. Cool, verify that you don't know them at all (even if that's a little white lie that can't be disproved), act sympathetic to their face, slip several thousand baht into the police fund, and let the police be the 'bad cops' and you save face by appearing to be Mr. Nice Guy.

[bkkmadness]

What is the point in people advising he pay thousands of baht to the police to sort this out. Kind of stupid isn't it, he's currently down one wall poster, that's all. Why should he increase this loss by thousands of baht to pay the police? Let's not all get mafiosa here and start paying off police to get them 'sorted'.

The people obviously were not friends of his so I don't know why everybody has jumped on that bandwagon. They said they knew subway's owner though thaivisa. So what? That could be any number of thousands of people that post on here and know Greg runs some subway outlets.

Go and see them, if you dont recognise them treat them as if they are just a pair of strangers that commited arson on your premises, nothing personal, let the law deal with it, simple

^ Only piece of advice worth listening too. Quite surprised you had to start a forum thread to get it Greg, seems like common sense to me.

[Khun Jean]

The OP's post is genius, it says a lot about the people giving 'advice'.

Please continue.

[Acquiesce]

If you have friends like that, who needs enemies?

You talking about sunbelt or the two guys, Tud?

Either would be correct in my opinion.

[phazey]

Book, hurl etc. It's easy to say "i know you from TV" as you're quite prolific here, both in sponsorship and posting.

Still the *potential* for a disaster was high - and that gets no familiar respect from me. Sure the losses were minimal, but could have been massive. And taking the "oh ok, you're a mate" angle would probably not let the culprit think twice about doing such an act again.

[davethailand]

A jokes a joke but this seems a bit beyond a joke to me, Definatley need to be repremanded or at the very least come clean and explain what happened.

[kiakaha]

What would you do?

Get a call from my wife. Some clown started a fire at one of my restaurants in the Nana area this morning at 4 a.m. The police have him and his friend in jail and they claim to know me from the Thaivisa forum, Both have no passport and no name so no idea who he is. My wife wants to press charges. On one hand I know a prank like this could of gotten haywire very fast with people dieing,on the other hand it seems they were drunk and were laughing as they lit the display. My understanding is no big damage.

I would hope, friends of mine don't go around endangering lives of other people. Guess when he is no longer drunk, he'll tell his name, now its my name is " No name"

Then what do I do when he sings another tune.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

they broke the law.

press charges.

hopeful they'll get deported and blacklisted.

drunk or not, actions have consequences.no excuses.period.

[alaina]

Hmm, guys that think fire is high comedy...

Do you know these guys, by any chance?

[geriatrickid]

The hypocrisy is just flowing in here isn't it. The same folks that complain about police corruption or unethical behaviour are suggesting that the police be bribed to hold the accused or beat them or to extort them etc. Bad advice and furthers the atmosphere of dishonesty.

If these tards were really trying to pull a prank, then they need some behaviour modification, not punishment. Putting them in jail will do nothing to prevent further stupidity. What they need is some community service, such as cleaning the soi, garbage cleanup etc. Some work for the common good will impart that there are consequences to actions and teach responsibility. They should also assume all costs arising from the incident.

Not justifying arson or an attack on someone that is gainully employed, rather trying to put the incident in perspective. If the intent was hijinks, treat it in that manner. If the intent was to burn the place down or profit from criminal activity, that's where jail time comes into play. These fools will still be walking around somewhere when this is over, so it's best to correct the deviant behaviour while there is a chance. You'd be doing the community and the idiots a service.

[Acquiesce]

What they need is some community service, such as cleaning the soi, garbage cleanup etc. Some work for the common good will impart that there are consequences to actions and teach responsibility.

maybe sunbelt will help them with the work permits.

[rainman]

He torched your restaurant (well, almost), won't provide his name and doesn't carry his passport. Sounds to me he will likely get kicked out of Thailand after this, so you may as well press charges to get your expenses back.

[stevenjm]

tell the police that you want to sting them for 50,000 baht each for the damage and hassle the fire caused and then give the cops a bit of cash to keep them locked up for a few days ,and let the police charge them for failing to carry there passports

hey, am surprised it took 3 pages to come up with this. This was my initial reaction also. I was thinking along the lines of 20,000us each though. good to see theres like minded people around.

[cdnvic]

What they need is some community service, such as cleaning the soi, garbage cleanup etc. Some work for the common good will impart that there are consequences to actions and teach responsibility.

maybe sunbelt will help them with the work permits.

Bit of a chip on your shoulder?

If you have a problem be a man and come out with it, not just these weak little snipes from the sidelines.

[Chang_paarp]

Hang 'em high.

Find out their names and/or TV nick and name and shame them.

[jts-khorat]

In my humble opinion , getting drunk is no excuse for bad behavior, but a lot of people try to use it for an excuse. They need to be shown that, there are consequences for their actions.

A good slap on the hand could be enough to enough to make them think next time. I would not get too carried away, but they should be made to realize they did wrong.

Without comment on how stupid it is to think that arson is something funny.

If the police deems this was an act endangering people, it will become automatically a criminal offense, with pretty much automatically a red stamp in your passport and deportation. At best they will let it drop for some really nice extra handwashing.

So no little slaps here; unluckily as Farang there is no middle way any more, it is completely scot free or totally destroyed.