Restriction of liquor sale time takes effect today throughout Thailand

[thaikahuna]

??? So in the afternoon, between 2 PM and 5 PM I can't walk into a 7-11 and buy a bottle of beer?

That is exactly what it says but will bet you that beer it doesn't get enforced for long....if at all in most places.

[charmonman]

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A country once called Land of the free, now ruled by new moralistic dinosaurs.

This has nothing to do with moralistic dinosaurs, but with the fact that alcohol abuse and the problems related to it have reached gigantic proportions in this country. The fact that a few alcohol addicts among foreigners living in Thailand don't like restrictions on their juice doesn't change that fact.

Maybe the geniuses in charge of this increasingly unpleasant place should tackle the many problems that actually drive people to drown their sorrows with alcohol, instead of restricting their sole refuge. Problems like the increasing gap between rich and poor, rampant consumerism, unemployment, low wages, poor working conditions, corruption, greed, injustice, etcetera, etcetera.

No, no. Instead they do even more damage to an important segment of the economy that is already suffering because of this country's rapidly diminishing appeal to all but the most ignorant and naive of tourists.

[Veritas48]

Edging slowly towards Sharia law in Thailand!

[apalink_thailand]

And another nail gets driven into the coffin.

[SiSePuede419]

But, how will I know when I can buy alcohol now?

I don't carry a watch and only use a sundial. 10am looks almost the same as 11am.

Plus, my sundial doesn't work at night...

[apalink_thailand]

Fun police strikes again. Alcohol time restrictions have been in force for ages at 711 & tesco lotus etc. Mom & pop shops / condo minimarts sell booze 24/7, that won't change. As if people will stay in a club after midnight if they can't drink. Once a party city now getting tamer & more regulated by the minute. This will hurt Bangkok!

Not to mention random drug tests on the street. I am glad I got my partying out of my system when it was still "fun city" in the 90's. Would the last one out, please turn off the lights.

[Sviss Geez]

Considering that ThaiVisa has an interest in bars through their Lounges I'm surprised they haven't provided an answer to so many poster's questions, I wouldn't have thought that it would be so difficult.

What are the operating (alcohol selling) hours of, for example, The Lounge Bar/New Wave from today, George?

Edited January 24, 2015 by Sviss Geez

[Donnie Brasco]

Yeah this is gonna really change the lives of most "expats" here.

I say that because of the frequency with which I seem to encounter in depth discussions regarding the price of beer, its availability and its absolute primal role in the "away game" we call expat life in Thailand.

It might even usher in an era of elegance and restraint wherein one goes to a liquor retailer and stocks up and DOESN'T then proceed to sit down on the steps outside ang guzzle the lot.

Liquor cabinets and the antiquated notion of keeping a couple of quarts of Scotch, wine, beer around for visitors rather than just popping the seal and gargling ones way into Nirvana might actually take hold.

Restraint and self control = keeping a few bottles around the house and not feeling compelled to pour them down your neck.

[sandmike]

Edging slowly towards Sharia law in Thailand!

A related question ....

Is the good PM a Muslim ??

.

[brewsterbudgen]

It's not a new law and it's not going to change anything. People need to get a grip!

[nahkit]

probably will not be enforced , but may be an issue for the seller(bar, restaurant) legally if they happen to sell alcohol to someone at the banned hours and that someone drives drunk,

kills people and they are able to prove the seller "illegaly" sold the alcohol...

I think you're confusing Thailand with the U.S.A.

[Veritas48]

If your sundial does not work at night use fluorescent markings.....................

[sandyf]

Translations are notoriously ambiguous, only time will reveal the actual outcome.

Most laws have built in criteria to allow legal deviation from the norm and operating licences is one of the most common. Many of the businesses in the 'entertainment' industry are unregistered and this may well be an underhand method of pushing registration.

"At all other times, alcohol sales are strictly forbidden with the exception of at international airport terminals and legally registered entertainment venues which have laws that strictly govern the periods they can operate daily."

I cannot see the Thais being deprived of their holiday afternoons at the beach.

[LivinLOS]

Where it will effect me sometimes is that I have to travel 80 kms to a Makro, where sometimes I would buy wine and spirits. This now means I need to plan my trip carefully to fiti in with the hours. Not so important but could be inconvenient.

The hours for selling alcohol have not changed in general, but looks like the go go bars will be hit hard.

Why would it affect gogo bars? They have their own operating licences.

Because they have to stop selling at midnight instead of 0200?

If their licence permits opening/selling alcohol until 2am I would expect that they can continue to do so.

Legally, except for a few designated special entertainment zones, the whole country is supposed to close at midnight.. The 'standard practice' of 2am is just police ($$) discretion..

Chiang mai is shut down at midnight.. Except for some police owned or paying discos.

[LivinLOS]

I read it that is still the same for shops etc but now includes bars?

Bars operate under different legislation and licences which cover their operating hours.

Bars closure hours legally are midnight.. In special zone (cowboy patpong but oddly not nana IIRC) its 1 am..

Routinely ignored but thats the law country wide.

[LivinLOS]

Does anyone know why alcohol can't be purchased between 2-5pm, what is so significant about those 3 hours?

To stop school children buying alcohol after school..

The fact theres already a law to not sell to minors is simply ignored as they layer another, routinely ignored rule, that mom and pops still do as they please, yet inconveniences normal adults the country over !!! Just dumb and dumberer..

[cauldlad]

7-11 you could never get a beer between 2pm and 5pm but Family Mart used to sell all day.

Think I will pop down to the Family Mart at the bottom of my Soi and test them out.

Anyone want to bet they are still selling?

[LivinLOS]

Either my englisch is so bad or the article is poorely written:

>Airports however are given the same allowance as before while entertainment venues which in the past were allowed to sell alcohol from 9.00 pm – 2.00 am can only do so up to midnight.

This means that in total, night time entertainment venues can only legally sell alcohol for 5 hours every day which in total is less than regular restaurants.

So this means according to the new regulations that discotheques, pubs, Bars, Karaokes etc. are allowed to sell alcohol from 9.00 pm up to midnight? That would be crazy! And that would by the way only be 3 (!) hours instead of five as stated in the article.

Yeah, the only way I can make the math work on this one is if they are trying to say that regular restaurants can sell alcohol for five hours less per day than entertainment venues.

Restaurant: 11:00 am - 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm - midnight.

Entertainment venue: 9:00 am - midnight.

So the bars in Bangkok are really going to stop serving alcohol at midnight now?

This article is really badly written. I have a number of friends who are bar owners, and I have checked around with them, in Pattaya and Bangkok. Bars, if properly licensed, can sell alcohol legally from 9:00 am to midnight. The midnight swill was tested out during the curfew. I don't know if it changed back, legally, to 1:00 am. But sure, you are going to get hundreds of bars pushing the midnight limit. It comes down to policing.

Exactly.. the 'law' says midnight.. Just because your in pattaya propping up a bar at 3am doesnt mean that this is legal.. It isnt.. The 2am tolerance is or was entirely down to policing..

Also police recently came around chiang mais loy kroh bar areas and told baffled bar owners the 2 - 5 sales restrictions applied to bars also.. It didnt stay long but the police made it clear this was the law..

A law they dont currently enforce, but no less a law and one they can choose to enforce if they wish or top down says so.

[Corneli]

Such a idiot. It is the same guy who wants forbidden the alkohol on new year.

Why the PM not kick out this person on the cabinet,

He should go to the psychatric hospital. Search his family!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[cauldlad]

Does anyone know why alcohol can't be purchased between 2-5pm, what is so significant about those 3 hours?

To stop school children buying alcohol after school..

The fact theres already a law to not sell to minors is simply ignored as they layer another, routinely ignored rule, that mom and pops still do as they please, yet inconveniences normal adults the country over !!! Just dumb and dumberer..

The kids just wait until after 5pm and buy what they want.

[Corneli]

An other topic.

I`m a German. When I see this bullshit I think all of my peaple are the alcoholics.

In Germany you can by alcohol at any place 24 hr arround, So we are all alcoholics, so stupid.

Greatings to Thai!!

[starkey_rich]

What a bunch of moronic t---ts.How the **** is anyone supposed to run a restaurant/ bar with these ***** in charge

[Nemesis7]

Hope they can enforce the new law.

[pegman]

An other topic.

I`m a German. When I see this bullshit I think all of my peaple are the alcoholics.

In Germany you can by alcohol at any place 24 hr arround, So we are all alcoholics, so stupid.

Greatings to Thai!!

Difference is you guys got rid of you fascists. Here they just retook over.

[chrisinth]

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What a relief. Problem of alcoholism in Thailand, especially among the (very) young : solved ! Yippee !

Now the lawmakers can move on to other issues :drugs, violence (especially in gangs), lack of education, status of women, abuse of children, forced labour ... I'm sure they'll quickly come up with solutions just as effective as this one.

It's a wonderful, wonderful world.

Considering that the selling restriction was originally introduced to prevent school kids buying alcohol during the day (yes, we know they should have been in school!) instead of using current laws that would only have meant that ID cards would need to asked for by the retailer if in doubt, that didn't work too well did it?

I haven't seen any reduction in alcohol abuse in the 'very' young since then. Nor have you if you are relieved that the new changes will make a difference.............

[owenm]

LOS "Land of Smiles" is speeding ahead to be "LAND OF STUPIDITY"

Watch Thai unemployment grow, bars and restaurants close up shop, international tourism continue to rapidly decline!!

Expats and retiries will now be having second thoughts about their future living in LOS. Options such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Philippines may become real options to consider.

I thought that Australia was becoming a nanny state with over regulations, but it is now appearing quite tame. I think Thailand is moving in the direction of Zimbabwe.

What will be next on their agenda? More nationwide widespread drug testing on farangs, because it has been very successful on Sukhomvit in BKK. Compulsory STD testing and increasing the tax on condoms!!

[chrisinth]

That is one extremely confused report.

I am assuming that 'entertainment venues' means licenced premises, ie, bars and restaurants? This would allow then to open from 09:00 until midnight (instead of 02:00 the next morning) giving then a selling window of 15 hours a day. How do you cap that at 10 hours?

What are 'night time entertainment venues' then as opposed to 'entertainment venues', and why can they only legally sell alcohol for a 5 hour period? Even given that their licence only allowed them to open at 17:00 (5pm), that would give them 7 hours opening until midnight.

Without going into the other nonsense in the report, any licenced venue that loses even 2 hours is going to feel that loss over a period of time. If they do go ahead with this, not only is it going to affect tourist numbers (those coming here to party) but standby to see a lot of current bars & restaurants closing.

[delgarcon]

Is this the beginning of the CLOSURE of the many SEX bars? Remember a few months back the big man in Bangkok did a "tour" of the girly bars? And he did not like them?

Instead of CLOSING them, Restrict them to the point of being un - viable.

This is what i see.

Bye bye tourism for Thailand. And BTW this type of tourism for Thailand goes back many hundreds of years.

Thais always had a reputation for Certain HOSPITALITIES.

Closing the sex bars would not be a bad idea in one way, Thailand might benefit from a better class of tourist. How are all the bar girls going to feed their families though? Most of them have kids being brought up by their mothers, having been dumped by their cheating spouses and having no recourse to claim alimony or benefit to help them.

It's not going to happen is it!

[wowfactor10]

Just ban alchohol and Sigarettes all together

Its clearly not a budhist way of life..

[chrisinth]

It is strange that the rest of the world recognize restrictive drinking periods as being a problem, some people can't see this.

Won't be long before we see a scenario, like in every major city in the UK (as an example) when all the pubs and nightclubs kick out at the same time, an increase in violence on the streets. I know, I know, many people will think this as over reaction, but give it time.

One of the reasons in the UK, through police advise I may add, that they would like to see relaxation on the current laws. It was also a reason why all day drinking was introduced, to prevent 'binge' drinking during limited periods of opening.

Doesn't matter to me as I no longer drink, but it concerns me that a tourist is prepared to travel long distances only to find that they will be treated like children when they get here.

These law changes will hardly affect the Thais, its their country and they know the shortcuts, but it will affect the tourist.