| |
FarangBha
|
Every taxi driver is saying it wont happen.... some of the cabinet members are planning delaying tactics...
BTW: Its times like this the mighty Sour-One is missed - does he still drop in? Another handle maybe? Whats the word??
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:17 am on Feb. 24, 2004
|
|
Kryptonite
|
Yes, I agree. It's time like this that we need the "Sour one" to enlighten us as to what the latest news is. I used to like his posting, I wonder why that is? 
Krypto
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 3:19 am on Feb. 24, 2004
|
|
pattaya prince
|
now I have heard on the grapevine that 1st march is no longer and they (gov) have put it back as much as 12 months.
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:52 am on Feb. 24, 2004
|
|
silentbob1234
|
The grapevine? What in the wide world of sports is Marvin Gaye doing in Thailand? Get 'im back in his box!
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 9:57 am on Feb. 24, 2004
|
|
Hermanolobo
|
Quote: from Kryptonite on 4:19 pm on Feb. 24, 2004
Yes, I agree. It's time like this that we need the "Sour one" to enlighten us as to what the latest news is. I used to like his posting, I wonder why that is?
Krypto
He enlightened me. Very informative and amusing it was.
I think he is too non-PC for the Forum.
Pity I'm fed up with the politically correct world myself.
I hope he gets a job with the Bangkok Post to replace Bernard Trink. It could do with a bit of 'lively-up' ?
Even better give the 'Sour -One' the job as editor !
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 6:57 am on Feb. 27, 2004
|
|
cheapcharlie
|
hotel bars will still be open though lads
anyone know whats going on ?
for us w#nkers in falang country
will be in los 25 next mth
keep the feeds coming je who know
and live in city of angels
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 8:14 am on Feb. 27, 2004
|
|
Sliderman
|
"We are helping them keep their virginity"
From New York Times:
February 27, 2004
BANGKOK JOURNAL
At 10 P.M., Thais Better Know Where Their Children Are
By SETH MYDANS
BANGKOK, Feb. 20 — Imagine a city where bars, nightclubs and even movie theaters shut down early, where young people are off the streets by curfew, where universities stage surprise drug tests and where a woman cannot enter a restaurant without a male escort.
That wouldn't be the racy, all-night Bangkok that people like to call "fun city."
But it is Bangkok — and the rest of Thailand — as imagined by powerful government reformers who have already begun to put a crimp in the fun.
Nearly three years ago, they began what they call a "social order" campaign, enforcing a 2 a.m. closing time that nobody had ever bothered about and by raiding nightspots and testing customers for drugs.
To almost everyone's surprise, the politically popular campaign has persisted despite the resistance of powerful businessmen and the complaints of Western tourists.
Now the screws are beginning to tighten.
On March 1, most nightclubs, bars and discos will have their closing times moved back to midnight, one of the most stringent curfews in Asia. After March 29, under another new regulation, all youngsters under 18 will have to be off the streets by 10 p.m. unless they are with their parents.
This month the Interior Ministry announced a 100-fold increase in license fees that, if put into effect, is sure to put scores of restaurants, ballrooms, massage parlors and other entertainment places out of business.
With Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra intimidating the press; packing the courts, the police and the military; and all but eliminating political opposition, and with social order added to the mix, Thailand could begin to be a somewhat different place.
There are those, indeed, who warn of a creeping dictatorship as the popular and powerful prime minister moves systematically to bring the country into his grip.
"There is a very troubling hint of a yearning to gradually turn Thailand into a police state," wrote Pravit Rojanaphruk, a political commentator, in the English-language daily The Nation last week.
"The state is now trying to become big brother, and if this occurs without any resistance from both young and old it is not too far-fetched to imagine that the government will impose more measures dictating how people should or should not behave."
Government officials are not shy about saying pretty much the same thing.
"I want my children to grow up in a polite, peaceful and orderly society," said Purachai Piemsomboon, a former interior minister who instituted the crackdown, in a television interview last year.
Curiously, polite and orderly Singapore is moving in the opposite direction. Last summer the police announced that bars would be allowed to stay open around the clock and that patrons could dance on tabletops.
As soon as it was started, Thailand's campaign was widely popular, with polls showing that 70 percent of the public backed it. For the moment, Mr. Purachai, became the most popular politician in the country.
"Students are reveling without a limit," he said. "Dancing is not dirty, but how they behave matters. They must not have sex in lifts or toilets. That's pathetic."
This is a time of wrenching change in Thailand as traditional social and family structures give way to the modern world. Mr. Purachai was voicing the fears of many people who see their country, and their children, running out of control.
On the other hand, there are critics who say Mr. Purachai and his fellow reformers have gone a bit out of control themselves.
At one point, a police district in Bangkok, resurrecting a long-forgotten law, ordered entertainment places to turn away any women who tried to enter without a male escort.
"If a girl walks alone in an isolated place police have to check on her," Mr. Purachai said, although the orders are never likely to be enforced. "This isn't infringement but a precaution."
Early last year, the police raided movie theaters in a shopping mall and ordered them to close at midnight, citing an old martial law curfew that was still on the books.
"Although the law was established 30 years ago, it is still practical, especially for today's generation, who face too many temptations," said Somchai Petprasert, a police colonel working as an adviser to the Education Ministry.
It is only a little more than a decade since Thailand was ruled by generals, and the rights and freedoms of its democracy are still fragile. It was only at the end of 1997 that these were codified in a new Constitution.
Mr. Thaksin's six-year-old government has been systematically rolling back those reforms, weakening safeguards against corruption and electoral fraud, muzzling government critics and using economic pressure to stifle the press.
Public morals and social behavior may prove to be a greater challenge, though. There is a forlorn hope that the problems of a changing society can be corralled by crackdowns.
"We are helping them keep their virginity," explained Nikhom Jarumanee, an Education Ministry official, when an experimental curfew was tried on Valentine's Day two years ago.
Plenty of people here think this is balderdash.
The Bangkok Post, an English-language daily, summed up the mood in a sarcastic headline last week: "Lock Up the Young, This Is Thailand."
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:04 pm on Feb. 27, 2004
|
|
poskat
|
From The Nation:
Time called on early bar closing
Published on Feb 28, 2004
Leave the bar at midnight? Just wait and see.
The government's plan to impose midnight-closing on nightspots outside designated zones from Monday might be postponed or even aborted because of a new draft regulation that maintains the current closing time.
The Interior Ministry yesterday sent the draft ministerial regulation for Cabinet review, possibly next week, said Vichien Chavalit, chief of the Department of Provincial Administration's Investigative and Legal Affairs Bureau.
The draft, which was written under a Cabinet resolution on February 10, sticks to the present closing time stipulated in the latest version of the Entertainment Act, which came into effect on January 13, Vichien said.
This requires that all entertainment venues licensed before January 13 close at 1am, nightclubs and bars must close at 2am, and lounges, tea houses and massage parlours at midnight.
He said that only entertainment venues licensed after January 13 and outside the designated zones would be subject to the midnight-closing time.
There are only three designated entertainment zones in Bangkok - Patpong, New Petchburi, and Ratchadaphisek.
Vichien denied that the draft was a policy reversal for the Ministry. It had pushed for early closing of nightspots as part of its social-order campaign, but the move has come under intense criticism from the night-entertainment industry and disgruntled club-goers.
The guideline for keeping the status quo on closing times came from Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
"The draft follows the Prime Minister's views," Vichien said.
Thaksin said on his weekly radio address on Valentine's Day that the midnight-closing time would not be imposed on businesses that were open before the new rule took effect.
The recent changes in opening hours and zoning policies has left the night-entertainment industry in limbo, with business owners unsure what the new rules would be and what effect they would have.
When contacted by The Nation, several high-ranking metropolitan police officers and owners of major entertainment venues yesterday declined to comment on the issue, saying that they needed to see the final decision from the Cabinet first.
A source in the Metropolitan Police Bureau said that the police would make sure that nightlife businesses strictly comply with the closing time stipulated in the new ministerial regulation.
Phermsak Lilakul
THE NATION
poskat
|
Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:40 pm on Feb. 27, 2004
|
|
|
|
hzink
|
This whole thing still looks to me like a simple 'follow-the-money' scam, particularly obvious when it was discovered that the First Ldy bough real estate in one of the zoned areas... Just mans quick money, as none of them could have bought any real-estate in the existing areas.. Thus, if locked out of existing business, just pass laws that favor your present deals 
Personally, I see this as being a non-issue within 6 months from now - and if not, just means I get to finish my business before midnight, and skip drinking with friends, since bars won't open until 6:00pm.
So, does that mean Starbucks, and restaurants will have to be closed, as well?
Harry
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:21 am on Feb. 28, 2004
|
|
| |
|
