Zoning

[george]

Move to save Khao San, Nana nightlife

BANGKOK: ight-club owners have urged authorities to designate Soi Nana and Khao San Road as entertainment zones, citing the huge number of foreign tourists who visit these areas.

Nightspots outside entertainment zones will have to shut at midnight under new rules expected to take effect on March 15.

Petitions to list Soi Nana and Khao San Road as entertainment zones were sent to Deputy Interior Minister Pracha Maleenont, a source at the ministry said yesterday.

"Whether more zones will be designated depends on the decision of a panel headed by Deputy Prime Minister Purachai Piumsombun," the source added.

Currently, three areas in Bangkok have been designated as entertainment zones - Patpong, New Phetburi Road and Ratchadaphisek Road - where certain types of entertainment venues can remain open until 2am.

The source said Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Noor Matha would tomorrow seek Cabinet approval for a draft ministerial regulation that sets new operating hours for entertainment venues, which include nightclubs, cocktail lounges, bars and massage parlours.

The key element in the draft is that entertainment venues outside designated zones must shut by midnight.

"If approved, the enforcement of the new closing-time rule will take effect on March 15," a senior official at the Interior Ministry said.

The official added that it was unlikely the ministry would postpone enforcement of the rule as requested by the House Committee on Tourism.

In a related development, Colonel Sonthichai Arwattanakul-thep - the superintendent of Yan Ta Khao Provincial Police Station in Trang - said he had received many complaints from parents that youths were frequenting numerous entertainment venues despite laws prohibiting underage patrons.

"We will take harsh actions against the offenders from now on," he said at a meeting on regulating entertainment venues under his jurisdictions.

Sonthichai said police would also monitor Internet cafes following reports that young patrons were browsing inappropriate Web sites.

--The Nation 2004-03-01

[george]

Follow-up:

'Cinderella law' a blow to Thai sex industry

BANGKOK: - Thailand's famed entertainment industry is set for a body blow from Monday with midnight closures ordered for most nightspots, but as the witching hour neared, venue operators were unsure whether the crackdown would be enforced.

In a move that many bar owners say signals the possible deathknell for their businesses, the government announced this month it would strictly enforce regulations requiring nightclubs, discos, go-go bars and massage parlours to lock up by midnight from March 1 if they are outside designated zones.

Bangkok has three such zones, where venues will be allowed to remain open up to 2am, but for bars and nightclubs outside those areas the prospects are grim.

"Basically my business starts at midnight," said an exasperated David Jacobson, a partner in Bangkok's long-running New York-style nightclub Q Bar.

"It probably means we won't be able to survive. We'll try, but I'm not too optimistic," he told reporters.

Jacobson was quick to laud Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's efforts to clean up what the bar owner called Thailand's "reputation as the cheapest destination for sex and drugs and rock and roll".

But he said the premier had gone about the campaign the wrong way, allowing late night closures at the famed red-light district of Patpong, the New Petchaburi area known as RCA popular with Thai teens, and Ratchada Phisek which teems with massage parlours and karaoke bars.

"It doesn't make sense to approve a sex zone, an underage kids zone and a massage zone," Jacobson said.

"They should be shutting down the three zones they've approved and let the rest of the city operate, but they seem to have it ass backwards."

The Thai press has pounced on the issue, with the Bangkok Post offering a withering critique of the plan.

"The fact that RCA is in the extended-hour zone at all makes a mockery of the whole exercise as it is a well-known hotbed of underage drinking, drugs and fighting - precisely the evils the government says it is trying to wipe out and wants to use a 10pm curfew to do so," the daily said in an editorial.

Thailand in February slapped a nationwide nighttime curfew for all youths under 18 in an effort to prevent them from roaming red-light districts and engaging in crime.

Flamboyant massage-parlour tycoon Chuwit Kamolvisit has railed against the plan, blasting government ministers as hypocritical and warning the new rules will drive away tourism, Thailand's biggest money-spinner, and put thousands of people out of work.

"They want to promote Bangkok as a 'fashion city', a city that never sleeps, but now they close at midnight," he told reporters.

Early closing could merely drive nightlife including prostitution underground, he said.

Chuwit's history lesson alludes to the massive changes Thailand has witnessed in recent decades.

An agrarian society half a century ago, the kingdom has undergone a transformation to modernity, particularly in Bangkok, a city of 10 million.

The battle over closing hours is seen as one front in Thailand's tug-of-war between traditionalists and progressives.

The nightlife crackdown began in August 2001 under the stewardship of the government's "Mr Clean", then-interior minister Purachai Piemsombun, and ended the free-wheeling ways of Bangkok's bars and clubs which used to shut at dawn.

The initiative was firmly backed by most Thais who were alarmed by the epidemic of drug use among Thai youth and the easy availability of drugs.

But even as nightclub owners howl in protest over the tightening of the morals campaign, there is doubt over whether the closing rules will be enforced.

Metropolitan police contacted just 36 hours before the zero hour said they were in the dark about how to proceed after they learned the ministry had proposed new regulations that could maintain the current closing time of 2am for all venues.

"Everybody is waiting for that last moment to see what happens," bar owner Jacobson said.

-- Sapa-AFP 2004-02-29

[Up2U]

Is this the solution ?

Have Purachai as Governor of Bangkok - he can screw up the capital, but leave Phuket, Pattaya, Hua Hin, Krabi and the holiday islands alone.

Tourists can then avoid Bangkok, or have day-trips in to visit the Royal Palace and the various Wats. But leave BKK to the Thais. Let the farangs have the beaches.

[sabaijai]

Thai Government Decides on Delay and Partial Reprieve Regarding Operating Hours for Various Entertainment Venues

George, do you know whether this Nation article ever appeared? I tried searching for it on the Nation's website, didn't find anything.

[george]

It appeared in the printed edition, but not on the 'net, for some strange reason.

[MekhongKurt]

Thai Government Decides on Delay and Partial Reprieve Regarding Operating Hours for Various Entertainment Venues

George, do you know whether this Nation article ever appeared? I tried searching for it on the Nation's website, didn't find anything.

Sabaijai --

What George actually posted was a news alert I sent to subscribers of my web site, in which I made reference to Saturday's (February 28, 2004) edition of The Nation, which ran an article on page 1 of that's day's edition about the pullback. The headline is from my news alert, and, sorry to say, while I have a copy of that paper, I don't have it with me, so I can't tell you the headline under which the story ran there.

As George has already noted, it's strange that the paper never got around to including the story in its online edition.

Maybe I can get someone at The Nation to give me permission to run the story here and on my own web site; I know 2 reporters there, so I'll call them to ask, if you like.

[george]

This topic continues here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6954