Entertainment venue owners, managers and
workers shut down traffic at Dolphin roundabout in an attempt to extend
opening hours during the high season.
Boonlua Chatree and
Vimolrat Singnikorn
While for many the answer is irrelevant, the question
of exactly what time Pattaya’s bars must close continues to confound
late-night revelers and exasperate business owners.
While the law of the land still requires venues in
zoned entertainment areas to close by 1 a.m. and those outside by
midnight, Pattaya Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome announced Nov. 26 an informal
agreement between the city and Chonburi Provincial Police that extends
closing times to 3 a.m. and 2 a.m., respectively.
That wasn’t good enough for bar operators, however.
In protests both Dec. 1 and Dec. 3, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of
business owners and entertainment workers demanded Itthiphol get closing
times officially relaxed further, claiming they no longer could tolerate
the yo-yo-like whims of authorities, who’ve alternated between strict
enforcement and complete indifference to Walking Street discos operating
until after sunrise.
In a widely misconstrued announcement, the mayor told
about 200 bar owners who rallied outside Pattaya City Hall Dec. 1 that
he had submitted a proposal to the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok that
closing times be extended further - during high season only - to as late
as 4:30 a.m. for Walking Street and 3:30 a.m. for other areas.
While the vast majority of Pattaya’s 4 million
tourists a year are snug in their hotel beds by that time, party-loving
tourists and hardcore expat night owls immediately seized upon the news,
copying conflicting media reports to online forums and erroneously
pronouncing that closing times had again been extended.
They hadn’t, as became very evident later that night
when police again shut down Walking Street at 3 a.m.
What Itthiphol actually said was that he’d merely
sent a letter to Bangkok police indicating the city’s willingness to
extend hours further in exchange for strict compliance by bar owners to
laws regulating minors, drugs and guns. Overlooked by jubilant party
people was Itthiphol’s admission that he’d not yet received an answer
from Bangkok.
Realizing nothing had changed, bar owners came back
with a vengeance Dec. 3, shutting down traffic near the Dolphin
Roundabout with a march by up to 4,000 entertainment business operators.
Bandit Siritanyong, chairman of the Pattaya
Entertainment Association, said last month’s closing times crackdown -
which bars shut tight at either 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. just as high season got
underway - was the final straw.
Local police, he claimed, had been pressured by the
National Counter Corruption Commission, which had determined there were
“irregularities” in closing time enforcement in the city. Threatening to
make the Pattaya Police’s recently lax enforcement of closing times a
national issue, the NCCC demanded the police uphold the law as written.
They did.
That shows why later times need to be codified,
Bandit said. Informal agreements can be over-ridden by the NCCC, the
Interior Ministry or any of the many Bangkok authorities that flexed
their muscles over Pattaya in recent years.
Threatening to close down Sukhumvit Road three days
later if their protests were ignored, the Association submitted letters
to the Prime Minister’s Office, Interior Ministry, Justice Ministry,
Chonburi’s governor and the mayor laying out their demands.
The group wants more flexibility in operating hours,
particularly during high season. In return, the bar owners promised to
crack down on the serving of minors and be more vigilant in keeping out
drugs and guns.
Closing times in entertainment zones, they requested,
should be 4 a.m. on weekdays and 4:30 a.m. on weekends. For bars outside
such zones, closing times should be 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., respectively.
Finally, the bar owners want to be part of a
committee established to regulate entertainment business zoning and
closing times.
At both rallies, Itthiphol made clear he was on the
side of business owners and agreed with their assertions that 70 percent
of their business comes during late nights in the high season. He said
their requests would not be rejected out of hand and that the city was
very concerned with maintaining a good image for fun-seeking tourists.
