PATTAYA, Thailand – Every major festival in Pattaya follows the same script: bright lights, big crowds, and official talk of “order” and “safety.” Then the booths go up, bikes roll onto footpaths, cars block walkways, and pedestrians are pushed into live traffic. When the music stops, nothing changes.
Residents say the problem isn’t a lack of rules — it’s a culture of tolerance that has replaced enforcement. A few days of ticketing during events, they argue, does nothing. “It’s like using nasal spray for the flu,” one long-time resident said. The symptoms disappear briefly, but the illness remains.
Across Pattaya, shop owners treat public footpaths as private extensions of their businesses. Motorbikes are parked wherever space allows. Cars block access with no fear of consequences. Even the new beach promenade — built to improve walkability — is routinely filled with sales booths, forcing families, children, and the elderly back onto the road.
Residents point to Jomtien and the stretch between Pratumnak and Jomtien as examples of what happens when tolerance replaces discipline: traffic chaos, blocked walkways, and safety sacrificed for convenience. In their view, respect only comes when enforcement is real, visible, and costly.
Pattaya doesn’t suffer from a lack of laws. It suffers from a lack of will to apply them — equally, consistently, and permanently. Until that changes, festivals will continue to expose the same uncomfortable truth: Pattaya knows the problem, but chooses to tolerate it.
