The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

Post by Gaybutton »

gerefan wrote: Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:23 pm none of the ones I have been into have asked for anything let alone tests, signing in etc.
Pattaya cops go back to what’s easy: Enforcing alcohol-sales hours

By Boonlua Chatree

January 11, 2022

SHA+? Stop Covid 2 Plus? ATK within 72 hours? For Pattaya police, the new coronavirus regulations are just too complicated, so they’re focusing on the easy thing: Making sure restaurants aren’t selling alcohol after 9 p.m.

After ten days of checking that restaurants and bars are testing all their staff daily and customers within 72 hours of their last test, police have basically given up and gone back to what’s easy. They may not know the age of a customer’s antigen test cassette, but they do know if his beer glass is full after 9 p.m.

So cops have left the health and testing checks to the Public Health Department and have begun busting the chops of restaurant owners about selling hours. Fines are easy to collect.

The boys in brown also spend a part of their day hassling women in provocative dresses, but no face masks, cat-calling customers from the road to come to their bars, sorry, restaurants.

Banglamung Deputy District Chief Pornchai Sangeid toured South Pattaya and Third Road Jan. 10 and, unsurprisingly, found places complied with all the rules when uniforms showed up.

Some venues, already angry over the shorter business hours – arguing that two hours won’t make a bit of difference in disease control but makes a bigger difference on the bottom line – argued whether they could remain open and allow customers to drink the beverages they bought legally before 9 p.m.

The law only says booze can’t be sold, not consumed, after 9 p.m. And legal closing times remain, on paper, at midnight, even though police say differently.

Pornchai, meanwhile, was upset that Tree Town Market – the epicenter of Pattaya’s new Covid-19 outbreak – still is not testing everyone despite all the pressure and publicity about the bar-cum-petri dish. The beer bars around the complex – masquerading at restaurants – also had plenty of hostesses without masks bouncing around.

Chonburi on Tuesday reported 583 more coronavirus cases, of which 220 were in Banglamung District, which includes Pattaya.

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/ ... urs-385892
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

Post by gerefan »

Pattaya Mail wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:38 am Some venues, already angry over the shorter business hours – arguing that two hours won’t make a bit of difference in disease control
Wrong.

I went along Soi Buackau last night just before closing time at 9 pm. Many bars were packed with standing room only...if you could even find any standing room.

Tourists want to enjoy themselves and this involves going out for a drink. Otherwise why not stay at home.

So by cramming the drinking hours into smaller numbers the authorities are also cramming the punters into overcrowded bars.

If this doesn’t spread the disease what else would?

Better to spread the hours out, or heaven forbid, even extend them, and have the bars less crowded thus slowing the spread of the disease.

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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

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Hotels all over are moaning about cancellations as the most recent changes see many deciding to stay home, so no new tourists in a meaningful way should be reason enough to close every bar till the situation drastically changes. On another note only restaurant licenses should be had by proper restaurants with a real kitchen and only let restaurants that are open air be allowed to stay open.
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

Post by Jun »

There is no reason at all to close any bars. Omicron is here, whether the government like it or not. Since everyone has had the chance of a vaccine, they should carry on as normal, with no restrictions at all. . All they really need to do is advise those at highest risk to stay at home as much as possible for a few weeks (voluntarily).

That way, it should be a faster outbreak. Some countries already seem to be past peak infections, without a disastrous excess death rate.

They should also reinstate Test & Go. Quarantine stops absolutely nothing, once all variants are here.
Also, make sure everyone who fails a test has the right to isolate at home or in their hotel, until passing a test or 10 days, whichever is the shorter. Then they might just get some people actually taking tests and they can start to understand how many infections there are.
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

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Undaunted wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:33 pm Hotels all over are moaning about cancellations as the most recent changes see many deciding to stay home, so no new tourists in a meaningful way should be reason enough to close every bar till the situation drastically changes.
I fear you are forgetting that some of us tourists are already here and staying for the full 90 days. I still have 74 days to go!
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

Post by Undaunted »

gerefan wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:02 pm
Undaunted wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:33 pm Hotels all over are moaning about cancellations as the most recent changes see many deciding to stay home, so no new tourists in a meaningful way should be reason enough to close every bar till the situation drastically changes.
I fear you are forgetting that some of us tourists are already here and staying for the full 90 days. I still have 74 days to go!
Can’t find anything else to do than sit in a bar?
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

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Undaunted wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 8:03 pm Can’t find anything else to do than sit in a bar?
Right now, how much else is there for tourists to do?

I'm not a tourist, so it is difficult for me to try to see things from a tourist perspective. But under the current rules and restrictions, other than going to the beach by day and the bars by night, I don't see much else even available right now for tourists to do.

I tried to convince readers not to go to Thailand under current rules and restrictions, but some went anyway. I hope those of you currently in Thailand are enjoying your holiday and have no regrets about going when you did rather than waiting for the situation to get back to at least close to normal.

I hope those of you going to bars, considering the current situation, are in the bars because you are truly enjoying it rather than being in the bars out of boredom because there's not much going on better to do.

As an article above points out, the police are enforcing the 9:00pm time limit on serving alcohol, but they seem to be confusing serving alcohol with alcohol ordered and served before 9:00pm, but the customer hasn't finished the drink yet. Nothing in the edict says the customer cannot finish his drink after 9:00pm as long as he ordered it and it was served before 9:00pm. Ordering a drink a 8:58pm and having it served at 8:59pm is perfectly legal. Also nothing in the edict sets a limit on how many drinks can be ordered. A person could actually order 5 or 6 drinks at 8:55 and as long as they are served before 9:00pm, it is perfectly legal for the customer to take all the time he wants - until closing time - to finish them. The problem is whether the police are going to see it that way.

Even though you might be right, does anyone here truly believe you'll get anywhere arguing about it with the police? Actually you might get somewhere at that - the somewhere being a free night of police hospitality in a cell at the police station . . .
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

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Considering what is left of the bar scene traveling half way around the world in the middle of a pandemic is bizarre to say the least.
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

Post by Gaybutton »

Undaunted wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:47 am Considering what is left of the bar scene traveling half way around the world in the middle of a pandemic is bizarre to say the least.
I don't know if I would think of it as bizarre, but it is not something I would have done. I just hope those who traveled and those who are soon planning to travel are going to have the holiday they are looking for and won't be disappointed. I am not among those who seem bent on looking at this situation with rose colored glasses and are not taking the current situation seriously and are not taking Covid and Omicron seriously. The fact is, at least in Pattaya, the situation sux. People need to understand that the way things are, they are not going to have the happy-go-lucky fun filled, boy filled holiday they would have had just a few years ago. Like it or not, that is the reality.

Some seem to think Omicron is not much worse than a cold or flu and no big deal if you get it. I think it is a very big deal and certainly not an illness I would want under any circumstances, let alone in a foreign country when I am there for a holiday.
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Re: The Latest - restrictions, visas, entry requirements, etc.

Post by Jun »

Undaunted wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:47 am Considering what is left of the bar scene traveling half way around the world in the middle of a pandemic is bizarre to say the least.
Applying your "logic", no one would go anywhere, as the bar scene is not what it was 15 years ago. This is perverse, as none of us have a time machine.

I simply consider the alternative holiday destinations that are available, choose the best and if it looks better than being at home in the winter, I book the holiday. So far it's going fine.
Those who can only think in terms of comparing it with the old days won't even try to understand.

Just yesterday, I met a delightful young man from Laos on Romeo. With company like that, who needs a bar ?
Gaybutton wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:19 am People need to understand that the way things are, they are not going to have the happy-go-lucky fun filled, boy filled holiday they would have had just a few years ago.
What's stopping me having a happy go lucky boy filled holiday ? Right now, that's exactly what I'm having, at least as often as I want a boy.
Gaybutton wrote: Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:19 am Some seem to think Omicron is not much worse than a cold or flu and no big deal if you get it. I think it is a very big deal .
In most cases, Omicron is no worse than a cold. Of course, it MIGHT kill me, but the odds of that are very low and probably barely any worse than the odds of flu killing me (after vaccines). The probability of me dying from Omicron in the next 6 months is far lower than the probability of dying from other causes. So why would that be a reason to hide at home ?

As far as I'm concerned, this has moved from pandemic to endemic. Some governments get that. Others are slower to learn.
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