The lights go dim on Bangkok’s nightlife

Press, 19 August 1981, Page 27

The lights go dim on Bangkok’s nightlife

By (

Catherine Campbell

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok The latest crime crackdown in the Thai capital of Bangkok began like any other: the police moved off their beats and into the bars, hoping to catch a hostess without her number tag or perhaps topless go-go dancers without licences.

■While they worked, the officers enjoyed free beer from the management and maybe a video movie or the latest music, supplied in the hope that they would soon go away happy. Instead, they stayed until the newly enforced closing hours.

Customers, mostly tourists, gaped as the official closing time was diligently enforced on Patpong Road, and bars with names like “Sexy” and “Superstar” disgorged their crowds on the stroke of midnight, turning Bangkok’s main entertainment strip into a scene resembling the dying moments of a high school dance.

The city’s thousands of bar girls, proprietors, touts, and pimps tightened their belts, resigned to waiting out the familiar brief storm of Gov-ernment-enforced morality that frequently coincides with the off-season for tourists.

But they had not taken Colonel Chamlong Srimung into account.

Colonel Chamlong, a close

adviser to the Prime Minister. General Prem Tinsulandonda. is referred to in the the Thai press as “Maha Chamlong.” a title usually reserved for monks.

He chides his fellow politicians on their lack of Buddhist devotion, is a vegetarian, abstains from alcohol and gambling, and eats only one meal a day.

The colonel is the inspiration behind the Government's reasoning that places of entertainment breed crime.

Colonel Chamlong went on television to insist that he had not ordered the police to close bars and brothels, only to enforce the law.

The law, however, controls the closing time and the closing time affects profits. Bar owners, bar girls and the underpaid police normally generate considerable income for themselves by mutually co-operating in bending the law in such areas as dancing permits and closing hours. But Colonel Chamlong said there would be no let-up in the crime crackdown in spite of strong opposition from the tourist industry and threats of a nude protest by bargifls in the seaside and nightlife resort of Pattaya, 160 km east of Bangkok. However, the Government agreed to extend the hours of Pattaya bars by one hour to 1 a.m. on week nights and 2 a.m. on week-ends, a move

linked in the local press to the arrival there next month of the American aircraft carrier Midway and its support ships. Pattaya bar owners expressed dissatisfaction with the concession, and are pressing to be allowed to stay open until 4 a.m.

A bill before the Cabinet would extend the hours uniformly throughout Thailand but the Government has yet to make a decision. Even if the extension were approved and the law strictly enforced, bar staff, and police, will lose income because they are used to negotiating their own hours and pay-offs. The police have also been ordered to deal severely with gambling dens, and rumours that the gambling ban might affect horse racing have sent shudders through the betting fraternity.

Strict enforcement of the law has also resulted in the arrest of dozens of women walking : alone or sitting unescorted in coffee shops or bars.

Under a 1966 law, women are not allowed to enter entertainment places alone unless they work there. Women without male escorts can be charged with loitering for the purpose of prostitution.

Big round-ups of girls in late-night coffee shops, where bar crowds congregate when Patpong closes,

have injected sullen uncertainty into Bangkok's normally exuberant nightlife. During the afternoon shutdown from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., the only establishment on Patpong doing business is a bookstore. The live sex shows, popular with tourists for at least one visit, have closed their doors, waiting for easier times.

Bar owners are retaliating against the crackdown by serving only water to visiting policemen. Critics of Colonel Chamlong’s crusade insist that early closing just means more sleep for thieves and muggers, who can get their work done earlier in the evening.

Patpong patrons are adamant that the bars are rarely a source of crime. “The only rip-offs here are completely legitimate,” said one regular, referring to the inflated drink prices which also include a chat, with a bar girl. Industries related to Bangkok’s nightlife are suffering too.

Seamstresses who make the glittering bikinis worn by go-go dancers complain that their business has been cut by more than half. One shop owner said she would join any protest against the crackdown.

“After all we have to eat three meals a day, not just one like some people,” she said.