HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Shabby drain covers need replacing

Ruling Out Foreigners?

Check out the fire safety measures

Don’t cover up crimes because the criminals are misunderstood

Shabby drain covers need replacing

Dear Sirs,
In this week’s Pattaya Mail there is a photo of Pattaya Mayor Pairat inspecting and condemning the drain covers in Jomtien Beach. We have a much worse situation that has existed since drain covers were installed in the street formerly called Moo 6 Naklua, but lately called Soi 34 Sukhumvit, and the street running from North Road from the bus depot to Center Road.

The drain covers installed on both sides of these streets were evidentially fabricated in the contractor’s backyard, as they would not comply with any building code in the world. Concrete with two PVC holes for drains in the cover, these started collapsing immediately after traffic was allowed.

There have been many accidents with cars and motorcycles hitting these exposed holes after the covers disintegrated. The covers are then replaced with another “Band Aid” cover that is another home fabricated steel atrocity. The correct covers should be factory fabricated steel covers that are approved for vehicular traffic. Who inspected and approved these hazardous drain covers?

Lately, these approved covers have been installed on the extended road from Moo 6 to Third Road.

Mr. Mayor, please inspect these hazardous covers and have them replaced with the approved covers.
Frank Mack

Ruling Out Foreigners?

Editor;
The address I stated in a previous letter where I read and downloaded the proposed new draconian immigration laws was precisely correct. It was a feature article named as above in the “Good Morning Chiang Mai” periodical. Any complaints about their not archiving their back editions should be directed at them not me. Their web address is www. gmorning.info. It may even be possible to purchase back issues, this one was Vol: 8 No: 9. I hope that doesn’t mislead too many readers.

Popping the original address into Google also produced some interesting reading that discussed this article, also the illegal practice of using “a service” to renew three month visas.

By now the new proposals are available on several websites but remember that they are only proposals and subject to variance in translation.

The Pattaya Mail added why not go straight to the soi 8 website… If you are a PSC member maybe they can help. I feel sure that the Pattaya Mail will be doing its own in-depth article soonest. (Please Mr Editor.)

Anyway - I repeat - any resident who haven’t yet read the proposed new immigration laws should do so, pdq.
Just trying to help,
Ken Osborne

Check out the fire safety measures

Editor;
Being a faithful reader of Pattaya Mail the last 3 years, it was hard to avoid your Dec 26 front-page story about the High Five Hotel. After your description, the fire seems to be more like the ones you may find in firework factories, quick and full of blaze and smoke.

With all my respect for the cherry picker, I have to remind you that they have a limited reach, but then again, cherries can also be picked from the ground, but those cherries are not as beautiful as the ones from the tree though.

With Pattaya’s hard work to be a family resort, which will definitely not happen in my lifetime (I am 63), a really bad fire, any place, is not what the city needs. So, why not convert from “reporting journalism” to “investigating journalism”?

You could start by checking out the fire safety measures they have or had at the High Five. Fire hoses, smoke- alarms, sprinkler systems in the rooms, information on the wall in each room “what to do”, fire resistant fabrics and material and so on. If you would like a complete list, ask at the fire station, they should know.

And then, why not go on. There are plenty of “old” hotels in Pattaya, big ones; it could be an interesting break for you. And do not forget the really bad one that has scared people in most of the European countries, the disco. I can mention just a few big fires that happened in England, Spain, Sweden and Germany. All of them had casualties over 100 people.

Why not go to discos on Saturday night at around midnight. Put yourself in the most crowded place, and then think what you would do if one person started shouting “Fire”, and hundreds of people screamed towards the doors (the light goes off very quickly). Are the emergency doors locked with no available key as it turned out in Europe? The girls with the keys will not go there, I promise you. (The discos lock the E-doors to prevent people from sneaking in).

I cannot help you more than this, which is a small inspiration to do, perhaps, important work.

Pattaya as a family resort is hanging in there by its fingernails. If a really bad fire happens, no cherry picker in the world could save that ambition.
Best regards,
(Name Withheld)

Don’t cover up crimes because the criminals are misunderstood 

Dear Sirs,
I read with interest the letter from Frank Blanchard about how he feels ladyboys are being “attacked” by letter writers and your editorial staff. It is interesting in the fact that he feels the attack is on the ladyboys, and implies that if ladyboys do attack tourists, as some, and admittedly not all, have been known to do, people should just turn their heads and mutter “Mai pen rai, it’s only ladyboys ... they are misunderstood and mistreated and therefore we shouldn’t pay any attention when they commit crimes.”

Perhaps people should even take this idea farther, and turn their heads the other way and mutter “Mai pen rai” when the ride-by motorcycle thieves rip gold necklaces and snatch handbags from unsuspecting tourists. After all, these motorcycle riders are poor, misunderstood members of society and need the money more than the tourists they stole it from.

Or when tourists are shot by poor, misunderstood muggers from up country who only need a little money for their next ya ba fix, people should just turn their heads and mutter, “Mai pen rai, they are only poor, misunderstood and mistreated drug addicts who really need our love and understanding.”

On second thought, no, I think someone should bring to light every time a crime is committed, no matter who commits it, so that maybe, just maybe something will be done to stop it. No one I know wants to be attacked by anyone, man, woman or ladyboy, and the attackers should be brought to justice, no matter what their hormonal preference. We shouldn’t just dismiss violent criminals because they are misunderstood by society.

I invite Frank Blanchard to try to take a quiet, late night walk along Pattaya Beach, alone. In many, although admittedly not all, beach tourist destinations, this is often a highlight of many tourists’ trips. Unfortunately here, due to aggressive, often violent ladyboys, this can and often does turn into a nightmare. I love this place, too, but I’ll bet that if Frank did try to take this walk, he would have an entirely different outlook on the matter.
Sincerely,
Frank Lee Disgusted

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