A friend of mine just sent me a phone message to tell me that he had been eating quietly in Coffee World on Silom when the police decided to raid it. As a white foreigner, he was relatively left alone, but a black American was required to produce his passport.

Now, I already know about the whole Qbar fiasco, and that's not exactly what I'm after here- I'm wondering if anyone else has recently run into these kinds of spot checks on simple restaurants/tourist spots with no connection to the bar scene? Is this a new trend, or was my friend simply unlucky at lunch today?

"Steven"

A friend of mine just sent me a phone message to tell me that he had been eating quietly in Coffee World on Silom when the police decided to raid it. As a white foreigner, he was relatively left alone, but a black American was required to produce his passport.

Now, I already know about the whole Qbar fiasco, and that's not exactly what I'm after here- I'm wondering if anyone else has recently run into these kinds of spot checks on simple restaurants/tourist spots with no connection to the bar scene? Is this a new trend, or was my friend simply unlucky at lunch today?

"Steven"

I wouldn't read into these incidents too much. It's like a guy told me once years ago, there's a reason for everything

checking for underage latte drinkers?

looking for illegal drugs in the scones?

Caffine is a drug.

That should be reason enough????