Thailiban gives nightlife a
reprieve By Richard S Ehrlich
BANGKOK - Thailand's bars, nightclubs, massage
parlors and other adult entertainment places are
thanking their lucky neon stars for permission to remain
open past midnight.
Doom was supposed to come
last Monday, March 1, after an increasingly puritanical
government demanded that most of this country's
nightlife shut down at midnight, except for a handful of
"entertainment zones" that could stay open until 1 or
2am, depending on their services.
Critics had
dubbed that schedule the "Cinderella decree". So amid
loud warnings of a dark, financial apocalypse -
including a drop in foreign tourism and a surge of
unemployment among Thais - government officials
reluctantly reconsidered their "social order" crusade
and canceled the prim closing times.
Bar owners,
restaurant workers, taxi drivers, prostitutes, tourists
and others are cheering the change, which was suddenly
announced on Monday, the day when most were expecting
bad news.
"Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has
made a very sensible decision over this issue when the
Thai government backed down," a European who manages a
strip-tease bar said in an interview while asking to
remain anonymous.
"The new Thai statement is
that the midnight closing [rule] has been scrapped. This
comes as tremendously good news, not only to bar owners,
but to hundreds of thousands of people who work in the
night entertainment industry," the manager said.
And night entertainment in Thailand is much more
than just a successful, multimillion-dollar sex
industry. In most Thai cities and towns, warm evenings
all-year-round also feature delicious dining
establishments, jazz clubs, outdoor "beer gardens",
handicraft markets and places where parents can bring
their children to experience tourist-friendly, sanitized
fun after sunset.
Every night in Bangkok,
international backpackers and hip young Thais cram Khao
San Road, which is lined with shops, cafes, discos,
Internet booths and souvenir stalls catering mostly to
international travelers. Khao San has become one of the
most crowded, multicultural neighborhoods in Asia, and
it is especially so at night.
More slick
tourists wander Bangkok's upscale Sukhumvit Road, which
offers hedonistic and conventional nightlife above and
below the belt.
However, earlier this year
business leaders, tourists and others were shocked to
discover that Khao San and Sukhumvit were not part of
the new zones and would be forced to shut at midnight -
blacking out two of the most popular, money-earning
attractions Bangkok offered after dark.
Soi
Cowboy and Nana Entertainment Plaza, other nightspots
popular with foreigners seeking prostitutes, food and
music, were also scheduled to shut at midnight.
"The Thai middle and upper classes appear to be
so out of touch with what is happening in their own
country, to their own people," the European manager
said. "They should go down and see hustling, bustling
Khao San Road, full of tourists, visitors, backpackers
and Thai students. It is vital to the Thai economy. And
Sukhumvit Road is a hub of tourism.
"Everybody
just wants to relax, have a drink, have a meal, late at
night," he said.
In Thailand's big cities, many
entertainment businesses traditionally remain open until
2am, though occasionally are ordered to close at 1am.
Under the now-shredded draft of the Entertainment Act
planned for March 1, only three "zones" in Bangkok were
awarded the right to party after midnight.
Among
them was Patpong Road, one of the most famous streets in
the world for commercial sex. Patpong also features an
outdoor night market packed with tourists who are
sandwiched among strip-tease bars, restaurants, shops,
discos and massage parlors. Two neon-lit roads favored
by Thais seeking fun - Ratchadaphisek and New Petchburi
- also won permission to stay open after midnight.
Places outside those three zones would have been
forced to shut at midnight, affecting an estimated 70
percent of Bangkok's entertainment venues. Many of those
unfortunate establishments would also have been barred
from opening until late in the afternoon or early
evening, further squeezing their business hours to an
unprofitable schedule.
"What kind, and class, of
tourist does Thailand want to attract?" asked Frank
Rockport in a letter published in the Bangkok Post.
"Seriously, my friends and I feel insulted being told
that the only option we're given to enjoy a drink after
dinner is the seedy and decrepit cesspit called Patpong.
"We can't go to the Grand Hyatt bar or any of
the world-class pubs and bars elsewhere because some
politicians want to send us to the prostitution-infested
wasteland areas of Patpong and Rachada," Rockport wrote.
"Go to Singapore for a weekend! Or even Kuala
Lumpur," suggested The Nation newspaper in a sarcastic
story about "outsmarting the midnight crisis". After
all, "As Bangkok tightens its grip, these world cities
are loosening theirs," said The Nation, which was among
the Thai media in castigating the no-fun lawmakers as
"Thailiban".
Though the ban was to apply
throughout Thailand, in northern Thailand, Chiang Mai
city was allowed to stay open to 1am - or in some cases
2am - as were some other special sites. The new
reprieve, meanwhile, allows all places inside and
outside the zones to remain open until 1 or 2am.
As of April 1, according to a published
schedule, the new, countrywide stopwatch permits:
"Nightclubs and bars" to function from 9pm to 2am.
"Pubs, discotheques, cafes, restaurants with live
bands and cabarets" to boogie from 6pm to 1am.
"Massage parlors" to give the rub from 4pm to
midnight.
"Lounges and tea houses" to open from 11am to 2pm
and again from 6pm to midnight.
All new
entertainment venues that applied for operating licenses
after January 13 or do so in the future, however, must
shut at midnight if they are outside the zones. "This
measure can be considered a compromise," Deputy Interior
Minister Pracha Maleenond told reporters.
Thailand's debate about nightlife schedules and
zoning came amid an overall tightening of this majority
Buddhist nation's tolerance. And though the time ban
didn't quite pan out the way it was intended, the
puritanical effort appears to be having an affect in
other ways. In Bangkok, where the sex industry's
nighttime cabaret acts have featured sex toys, lesbian
shows and other live entertainment, more recently go-go
dancing by slightly more demure damsels in swimsuits
appeared to be the norm.
