HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Farang volunteer police

Reply to disgruntled expat re police wanna-bees

Pattaya handicapped decidedly (un)friendly

And so on and so on...

Noise pollution

Farang volunteer police

Editor;
Can anybody or Pattaya Mail please inform the readers what powers and authority these so-called pretend police have? I would like to know what problems if any I would have as my most certain reaction if they attempted to stop and question me would be to ignore them.
I have lived in Pattaya for almost twenty years and respect Thai laws and regulations and have no problem being pulled up and checked by real Thai police officers. My many Thai friends who have experienced being pulled up by foreigner pretend police resent their arrogance and their manner. After all Thailand is their country and they object strongly to being questioned by outsiders whose so-called power has gone to their heads and have little or no authority.
I go back to my original question. What power and authority do they really have? They can arrest you? Laughable!
H. Hobbs
South Pattaya
Editor’s note: Volunteers cannot arrest you. They serve at the request of the police divisions with whom they are volunteering, which mostly involves translations, explaining procedures and settling misunderstandings. As to your direct situation, foreigners volunteering with the traffic police on their own have no legal authority to pull up and check drivers of any nationality. If asked, they can, however, assist Thai highway and regular police at road blocks. Confusing? Perhaps, but the bottom line is - if you’re doing nothing illegal then you have nothing to worry about.

Reply to disgruntled expat re police wanna-bees

Editor;
Disgruntled expat Michael Smith (an assumed name I am sure due to Thai libel and slander laws, yes you could go to jail for some of your statements) let me set you straight paragraph by paragraph.
1. We are not the Volunteer Tourist Police that is the 200+ volunteer Thais. We are called the FTPA, Foreign Tourist Police Assistants. That means we “Assist the Tourist Police and the Foreigners to sort out their differences.”
2. We are not called “Police” we are “Assistants to the Police”. You are obviously using the “unbridled power of the press” to make a ridiculous statement. We have many ex-military, ex-police and even former soldiers of fortune or people like myself, former business executives, who are not disgruntled but appreciative of the hospitality that Thailand has shown us and want to give back to the community what little we can. “Unbridled power?” Are you ever mistaken, we have no more power than a Thai citizen who can make a citizen’s arrest if he/she sees a law broken, but we don’t abuse that power. We only detain tourists when we are ordered/instructed by a Tourist Police officer. Yes, some do carry handcuffs (used when ordered), some carry batons (never used to my knowledge), some of us even carry pepper spray: the only time mine was ever used was by my wife to try to kill mosquitoes in our house and we had to move out for a day.
3. The original concept was not to help tourists find their way around, we are not tour guides, or tour helpers we are assistants to the tourist and to the police, plain and simple. If you have lived here for 7 years your memory is probably short (it goes with old age) but, try to think back when you were a tourist and thought laws should be enforced like they do in your country. TIT “This is Thailand”. If you don’t want to be black, blue and bloody you need a little education and assistance. We assist and educate the tourist. Yes, part of what we do is assist the tourist to find XXXX bar or hotel. You endorse the volunteers that assist at the Soi 9 police station, they are called PPV. I will let you guess what the middle P stands for, a clue is it starts with a P and ends with an e and has a l in the middle Pxlxxe. I hope that is not too difficult for you to manage. They do a good job and help people once they get to Soi 9; we try to help them before they have to go to Soi 9.
4. Most of us are there to help, but helpers we are not, we are here to help the police understand the tourist and the tourist to understand the difference in Thai law and farang law. I would invite you or anyone else who doubts our sincerity and intent to come down to Walking Street at 9pm Wednesday night and spend the night at the van with me (that is my duty night from 9pm to 3am) and see how many drunks we take home in a baht bus or even in the back of one of our motorbikes because they might fall out of a bus or into the hands of a thief. You should also understand that 6 days a week I am asleep by 9pm so it is a struggle for me on Wednesday, but that is my “duty night”. You will see most of our evening is helping tourists sort out a bar bill, figure out where their hotel is, or what to do with a bar fine that did a runner on them. But also we have to listen to expats with their tales of how they found the perfect woman who took them to the cleaners.
While I know it will never come, I still believe you owe the 25 of us that give to protect the expats and the tourists a better time while they are here in the “Land of Smiles” an apology. We spend both our time and our own money making Pattaya a better, safer and more desirable place for the tourist and many of them personally thank us for what we do. Even some of the bar owners on Walking Street appreciate and acknowledge the benefit we provide the community.
I am retired here in Thailand but like helping other people so I am a FTPA for tourists, assist at the Pattaya City Expat Club for the expats, and VP of the Optimist Club of Thailand to help the youngsters get proper guidance to adulthood. What do you do?
Hawaii Bob

Pattaya handicapped decidedly (un)friendly

Dear Sir;
It was with astonishment when I perused your story of the presentation of an award to Pattaya for its work on being “handicapped friendly”.

Soi Yamato

May I suggest our mayor and his fellow councilors put themselves in the position of a handicapped person (either physically or visually) and try getting around Pattaya as they HAVE to.
Let them dare try to travel along, say, Soi Yamato (Soi 13/1) and let them see just how far they get without injury or insult. The footpaths are virtually blocked by advertising hoardings, bar stools providing outdoor smoking areas which are blocked by bar girls who along with their customers scream insults at anyone daring inconvenience them by daring to pass by their self appointed bailiwick. (see photo)
Following that may I suggest they then try passing along the same soi along the road.
If and only if they manage to survive various vehicles going the wrong way up this one way street let them try getting themselves unlocked from the three recently installed gridded storm drains which are just the right width to trap a wheel (or wheels) of a modern style light-weight wheelchair.
I know of several physically and visually impaired Pattaya visitors who have been virtual prisoners within the confines of their hotels and understandably vowing never to return.
Perhaps our council should shelve grandiose multi billion baht mono rail plans until such times as our walkways and roads are passable, and passable to all.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. B.

And so on and so on...

Editor;
That’s what I love about Mailbag. I start with a letter “Pattaya real estate - what now?” and end up being involved in what seems like a promotion for who is the most suitable party to win the American election.
In my remarks about George W. I was actually replying in the wider context to a gentleman from Yasothon who considered that the housing crash in the USA was due to house owners’ greed turning them into property speculators and how that could parallel in Pattaya.
I am not American but a Brit and if you want to know I prefer Obama to McCain and on the basis of his youth and vigour alone wins hands down. Also if anything happened to McCain, after all he is 72 I think, we would end up with Barbie in the White House and before you scream chauvinist I would have loved Hillary to win.
What I cannot understand from the two Republicans that wrote in is that regardless of the two terms that Bush served he bears no responsibility to the sub prime position and its all down to Obama and some other dude. Come on, the buck stops with him ... Surely.
Richard Franklin

Noise pollution

Editor;
Does Thailand have noise pollution laws? If so why don’t the guardians of law and order do something to clamp down on the offenders who don’t give a dang about not only saving their own ear drums, but who disturb others who do not wish to hear the vibrating BOOM BOOM trash that rise out of their multi-speaker systems?
There are laws in place in several countries that prohibit noise from speakers in an enclosed car that can be heard by others beyond a 15 meter distance. But on Jomtien Beach there are boom boxes set up some evenings that can be heard over a thousand meters away. The people who use them care nothing about disturbing the residents and visitors in the area who are here to enjoy the peace and quiet of a beautiful area.
Please, Mr. Police Officer, help us keep our senses.
Thank you.
The Jomtien Vigilante

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